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This is especially important because we envisage stakeholders to come from very different domains - technical, business, legal, etc. - each of which has different needs. Minimizing the effort being spent in this WG will require us spending some time to identify these needs, and finding ways to reconcile them into a minimum number of artifacts to be produced and maintained.
Concepts, Terminology and
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Scopes
The most basic purpose for having conceptual models (i.e. sets of carefully defined concepts, relations between concepts and constraints that should be satisfied) and terminology (formal labels for such concepts) is to help someone that interprets a term (interpreter) that is uttered by someone else (speaker), to accurately apprehend its intended meaning. In casual, human conversations, 'interpretation errors' (mis-apprehensions) may be detected and corrected if relevant. In automated contexts, terms (messages) are just interpreted as they are programmed, so any miscommunication occurs at the human level, and may go undetected and lead to buggy software (or costly repairs).This is particularly important in settings where groups of such individuals work together for a specific set of purposes, or to realize common objectives (we will use the term 'scope' to refer to such groups). The ability to test and/or ensure that the ideas they work with are aligned, is a key element for working efficiently and effectively. This is particularly valuable in (software) engineering, where 'interpretation errors' (mis-apprehensions) that go undetected may lead to buggy software and costly repairs.
It is common knowledge that every scope can have its own terminology (jargon). ToIP is about about interoperability between people from different domains (hence also different scopes) - e.g. legal, business, technical and other domains. Therefore, it is crucial to find a way in which each scope can retain its own terminology, yet be able to determine whether or not the concept a term refers to is known in the other scope, and if so, what term is used in the other scope to refer to it.
This situation is quite common in e.g. court cases. Regularly, arguments are made about whether or not someone or something qualifies as (an instance of) some concept. The outcome of this discussion is relevant, because laws assign consequences (duties, rights, ...) to those that do, or do not qualify. In order to be able to refer to such concepts, it is usually the first article in a law that documents the mapping between terms and the criteria that are used to determine whether or not someone or something qualifies as an instance of a concept. It occurs that different laws have different terms for the same concept, but that's not an issue as these mappings are made explicit. In all cases, the criteria are written in such a way that judges and other lawyers all apply them in the same way (and in case of disputes, judges settle the intended interpretation). The processes for defining and using such legal terms serve to us as inspiration for our workWe want to build on a specific practice, an example of which we find in legal settings, where it is important (e.g. in court cases) to determine whether or not someone or something qualifies as (an instance of) a term, e.g. 'guardian'. The outcome of this discussion is relevant, because laws assign consequences (duties, rights, ...) to those that do, or do not qualify. Often, the first article in a law document specifies the terminology that is used by that law, and hence should also be applied in cases where that law applies. And the point is that lawyers, knowing that such definitions must be used to decide whether or not something qualifies as in instance of a term, have made it a habit of defining a term in terms of criteria that judges and lawyers can apply, precisely for the (basic) purpose of ensuring that they all mean the same thing in a specific context. We have noted that it sometimes happens that a single criterion has different names (terms) in different laws. Lawyers can work with that by keeping strict tabs on the scope and context from which a term stems, and in which it is used.
Building on previous work
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