A procedural model for ontological analyses - Information Systems Foundations: Constructing and Criticising - page 157

and lack of relevance. These shortcomings are detailed below and refer to the outcomes
of the analysis
Lack of adequate result representation
The results of a complete ontological analysis, i.e. representation mapping and interpret-
ation mapping, are typically summarised in two tables. These tables list all the ontolo-
gical constructs (first table) and all the grammatical constructs (second table) and the
corresponding constructs of the other meta model. Such tables can become quite lengthy
and are typically not sorted in any particular order. They don't provide any insights
into the importance of identified deficiencies and they also don't cluster the findings.
Lack of result classification
As indicated above, it is common practice to derive ontological deficiencies based on a
comparison of the constructs in the ontology and the grammar. Ontological weaknesses
are identified when corresponding constructs are missing in the mapping obtained
between the ontology and the grammar or one-to-many (or many-to-one or even many-
many) relationships exist in the mapping between the two. Such identified deficiencies
are the typical starting point for the derivation of propositions and then hypotheses. In
general, the ontological analysis does not make any statements regarding the relative
importance of these findings in comparison with each other. Though this seems to be
the established practice, it lacks more detailed insights into the significance of the results.
It is to be expected, however, that missing support for a core construct of an ontology
should be rated of higher importance than missing a construct corresponding to a minor
ontological construct or a relationship. This lack of a more detailed statement regarding
the significance of a potential shortcoming makes it difficult to judge quickly the out-
comes of the results of two different sets of analyses (e.g. an ontological analysis of ARIS
compared to an ontological analysis of UML).
Lack of relevance
Finally, the results of an ontological analysis should be perceived as relevant by the re-
lated stakeholders. However, if an ontological analysis leads, for example, to the outcome
that Entity Relationship Models do not support the description of behaviour then it
would hardly be surprising if the IS community developed a rather critical opinion of
the worth of the analysis since this is both obvious and well known. It seems that an
ontological analysis has to consider the purpose of the grammar as well as the background
of the modeller who is applying this grammar. The application of a high-level and gen-
eric ontology does not consider this individual context and there is a danger that the
outcomes can be perceived as trivial.
Reference methodology for conducting ontological analyses
The shortcomings identified above have motivated the development of an enhanced
methodology for ontological analysis. The main purpose of this methodology is to increase
the rigour, the overall objectivity and the level of detail of the analysis. The proposed
methodology for ontological analyses is structured in three phases: input, process and
output.
Input
The formal specification of ontologies, together with the differences in the languages
used to specify the ontologies and the grammars under analysis, have been classified as
issues pertaining to the lack of understandability and comparability.