Risk Model Ontology

Semantic Web Technologies

The Risk Model Ontology is a framework that aims to represent and categorize knowledge about risk models using semantic web information technologies.

In principle any semantic technology can be the starting point for a risk model ontology. The Open Risk Manual adopts the W3C’s Web Ontology Language (OWL). OWL is a Semantic Web language designed to represent rich and complex knowledge about things, groups of things, and relations between things. OWL is a computational logic-based language such that knowledge expressed in OWL can be exploited by computer programs, e.g., to verify the consistency of that knowledge or to make implicit knowledge explicit. OWL documents, known as ontologies, can be published in the World Wide Web and may refer to or be referred from other OWL ontologies. OWL is part of the W3C’s Semantic Web technology stack, which includes RDF, RDFS, SPARQL, etc

The Risk Model Ontology

The Risk Model Ontology, codenamed Description of a Model (DOAM) codifies the relationship between the various components of a risk model universe.

There are three key elements to the DOAM ontology (Currently 0.3 version):

• The DOAM Classes (Concepts) that define the relevant aspects of the Risk Model Universe
• DOAM Object Properties (Relationships between classes / concepts), e.g. A model has a model validator
• Data Properties (Data literals associated with classes / concepts), e.g. A model has a required input

DOAM Classes

Classes (owl:Class) are the main concepts handled by the ontology. The choice of classes defines the scope of this knowledge domain. The current classes are:

• Risk Model, is the core class that is the subject of the ontology
• The Abstract Risk Model, the conceptual definition of the model
• The Model Specification, a concrete specification of a model that populates any information placeholders defined in the Abstract Risk Model description
• The Model Implementation, the computer programs and any other resources required to operate the model
• The live Model Instance that is deployed in operation (production)
• A risk model category as part of a Model Taxonomy to which the model belongs
• A model scope
• A Code Repository

DOAM Object Properties

Object properties (owl:ObjectProperty) relate individual instances of two OWL classes:

    hasTester
    hasScope
    hasModelCategory
    hasRepository
    hasMaintainer
    hasDocumenter
    hasDeveloper
    hasAuthor
    hasDefinition
    hasAbstractModel
    hasModelImplementation
    hasModelInstance
    hasModelSpecification
    isImplementing

DOAM Datatype Properties

Datatype properties (owl:DatatypeProperty) relates individuals (instances) of the DOAM OWL classes to literal values.

    creationDate
    dataEndPoint
    description
    documentationURL
    inputDataEndPoint
    inputDataString
    name
    outputDataEndPoint
    outputDataString
    repositoryURL
    revision
    serviceEndPoint
    shortdesc
    trainingURL

Use in the Open Risk Manual

DOAM is embedded and used in the Open Risk Manual and associated Open Source Projects.

• Various risk manual entries (pages) serve as additional documentation (annotation) of DOAM elements (the relevant page is indicated / linked to via rdfs:seeAlso annotations in the DOAM file itself)
• Open Source Risk Models use manual entries as the definitive Abstract Risk Model documentation page
• The DOAM ontology is imported to use by the semantic mediawiki extension (enables more sophisticated queries)