As we seek to release a first “official” version of the IOF Core ontology, we recently discussed and have agreed to transition to a slightly modified process to complete the review and formalization of core term definitions. The intent is to accelerate the overall process of formalizing a term’s definition through the use of more off-line reviews, and the use of the Jira tool for raising, tracking and ultimately resolving the issues raised for a candidate term’s definition. The purpose of IOF core meetings going forward will be less to analyze individual terms and rather more to prioritize, discuss and resolve issues that are raised. We refer to this modified process as the “Candidate Term Definition Review Procedure.”
As shown in the figure below, the procedure begins after the Term Analysis Procedure for a term concludes. While under normal circumstances we expect the Term Analysis Procedure to have produced a formalized definition for a term, in practice, we have not been able to hold enough meetings to achieve this. With the modified process outlined below, we assume the output of the term analysis procedure is at least an agreed-upon natural language definition, which we will refer to as a “candidate term definition.” The steps then to formalize and get to the approved formalization of a term, we will refer to as the “Candidate Term Definition Review Procedure.”
The following graphic depicts the various steps of the new procedure:
Please keep in mind this is a provisional process and additional details of the procedure will be refined in follow-on core meetings and as we begin to pilot the process, and will be documented on this page.