Separating Ontological and Informational Concerns: Towards a Two-Level Model-Driven Approach

Many authors have discussed the importance of ontological concerns in the development of information systems, emphasizing the benefits of ontology-based approaches to conceptual modeling tasks. A principled ontology-driven approach typically relies on the definition of a domain ontology and its use in subsequent phases of information system design and integration. Many of the challenges in the application of such an approach are related to addressing ontological concerns (defining the nature of phenomena of interest) and addressing information modeling concerns (defining the information demand about the phenomena of interest). In this paper we argue that ontological concerns should be clearly separated from information modeling concerns. We have observed that ontology-based approaches and information modeling approaches have been treated mostly in isolation, with the consequence that the relation between a domain ontology and an information model is still in need of clarification, despite the efforts of the formal ontology and information modeling communities. We strive to provide the initial steps for a principled two-level approach in which a domain ontology addressing ontological concerns is used as a starting point for the definition of an information model, according to a certain information demand. We identify some important decisions that should guide the construction of information models.