We envisage using this annotation property to highlight (indirectly) the grounding of certain entities on perspectives and characterize them according to the embraced perspective(s).
Here, it is provided an explicative example.
Let’s consider that two users, A and B, endorse two different perspectives on sustainability, perspective A and perspective B. These perspectives lead to considering different complex system components as stakeholders of the complex system of interest.
(This is an explicative example. It could also be the case that there is just one single user who wants to characterize the same entity according to two perspectives on sustainability, or who wants to provide an additional characterization according to a different perspective than the one previously covered.)
We suggest proceeding as follows.
First, the class “perspective” can be instantiated with two “perspective” individuals, “perspective A” and “perspective B”. These “perspective” individuals will provide descriptions and other relevant information regarding users’ perspectives. Then, two subclasses, “stakeholder – A” and “stakeholder – B”, can be added to the class “stakeholder”. These classes could be created manually and further populated with further subclasses and/or individuals. Alternatively, they can be created by adding SPARQL query results to the ontology, directly as classes or as classes equivalent to some new classes manually created. Subclasses “stakeholder – A” and “stakeholder – B” will cover stakeholders according to the two different user perspectives. Finally, this annotation property can be used to annotate these two subclasses with the corresponding individual “perspective A” and “perspective B”. In proceeding as such, we can highlight the grounding of the role of stakeholder (entity) on perspective (entity) and provide stakeholder characterizations according to the two user perspectives.
This procedure supports establishing indirectly the grounding of certain entities on perspectives. This procedure, however, ensures the possibility to also account for different characterizations of the same entity according to different perspectives, thereby assisting in clarifying and comparing those perspectives. Further, as a user may change perspective over time, this procedure can be performed whenever the perspective changes. New classes, covering time references, can be created and annotated with new perspectives. This will also assist in tracking users’ perspectives evolution over time. We contemplate the possible creation of an object property to directly model grounding on perspectives as part of future implementations of SCO.
