[Sigia-l] Ontologies

[Peter VanDijck]

> But I am more interested in the possible
> practical applications to IA work.  What is the difference between an
> ontology and a controlled vocabulary? 

A CV is a tool that can drive particular pieces of funtionality or
navigation on a website. An ontology is an attempt to capture knowledge
in some kind of structure (some more advanced than others - see
topicmaps.org). A CV is sinple and focussed on achieving something
(finding information). An ontology is a lofty construction, the goal of
which was mainly in artificial intelligence and such fields. For IA, I
think starting with CV's and expanding their complexity as needed for
functionality and navigation makes more sense than starting with
ontologies and then limiting their complexity. Hope that made sense?
PeterV