INTRODUCTION
ONTOCOM is a cost estimation model for the area of Ontology
Engineering developed at the Free
University of Berlin in collaboration with the Institute AIFB (University of Karlsruhe
- TH). It aims at predicting the costs arising in typical
classes of ontology engineering processes such as ontology
building, ontology reuse or ontology maintenance.
The accuracy of the cost predictions of Ontology Engineering
tasks calculated by means of ONTOCOM can be improved by the
calibration of the model. This necessitates the collection
of real-world ontology engineering project data. In STI
Innsbruck we are accomplishing the calibration of the
model for the evaluation of the efforts incurred for the creation
of some ontologies and this survey serves for the collection
of the required data. The calibration is part of the task
T3.3 "Evaluation of the economics of multimedia ontologies"
of the European project SALERO.
ABOUT
THIS SURVEY
Developed in the tradition of Software Engineering, ONTOCOM
uses a parametric prediction equation which contains product-,
personnel and project management-related effort multipliers.
The effort multipliers are used to adjust the nominal effort
to reflect the particularities of the ontology and of the
underlying engineering process. They are rated accordingly
with values from Very Low to Very High, depending on their
(positive or negative) impact on the nominal development effort.
The survey, consisting of 38 questions, is divided into
4 parts:
- introductory questions (Questions 1 to 13)
- product-related questions (Questions 14 to 31)
- personnel-related questions (Questions 32 to 35)
- project-related questions (Questions 36 to 38)
For most of the questions you are required to specify the
value of a certain effort multiplier, i.e. to position your
answer according to a five-step rating scale. If a particular
activity induces an increase of the nominal ontology development
effort, then it should be rated with values such as High and
Very High. In contrast, if it causes a decrease of the nominal
costs, then it should be rated with values such as Low and
Very Low. Finally, if the corresponding activity does not
influence the nominal costs it should be rated with Nominal.
THIS APPLIES IN PARTICULAR TO ACTIVITIES WHICH DO NOT APPLY
TO YOUR PROJECT SETTING. For each effort multiplier, we
suggest decision criteria which could be taken into consideration
when assigning the corresponding ratings.
This survey is especially tailored for multi-media ontologies.
STATUS / RESULTS
This survey is closed. We collected more than 50 multimedia
ontologies. The authors of these ontologies were asked to
contribute to this survey by mail. We received around 20 responses.
The data was used to calibrate the Ontocom and the prediction
accuracy could be improved! Thanks to everyone who contributed
to this survey.
Please check back for the survey results - they will be published
in a consolidated form soon.
Best regards,
Tobias Bürger
|