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There is an assumption that ontology developers will use a
top-down approach by using a foundational ontology, because it purportedly speeds up ontology development and improves quality and interoperability of the domain ontology. Informal assessment of these assumptions
reveals ambiguous results that are not only open to different interpretations but also such that foundational ontology usage is not foreseen in
most methodologies. Therefore, we investigated these assumptions in a
controlled experiment. After a lecture about DOLCE, BFO, and part-
whole relations, one-third chose to start domain ontology development
with an OWLized foundational ontology. On average, those who commenced with a foundational ontology added more new classes and class
axioms, and signi cantly less object properties than those who started
from scratch. No ontology contained errors regarding part-of vs. is-a.
The comprehensive results show that the `cost' incurred spending time
getting acquainted with a foundational ontology compared to starting
from scratch was more than made up for in size, understandability, and
interoperability already within the limited time frame of the experiment.
Ontologists tend to be outspoken about the usefulness of foundational (top-
level) ontologies, such as BFO, DOLCE [1], GFO [2], and SUMO: either they are
perceived to be essential or an impractical burden. Older ontology development
methodologies that are still in use, such as
Methontology
[3] and On-To-
Knowledge [4], do not mention the use of a foundational ontology, but at the time
of their development there were hardly any available, and the larger projects,
such as GALEN and Cyc, developed their own. More recent methodologies, such
as the NeON Methodology [5], mention it either in passing as part of ontology
reuse in general, or explicitly, as in OntoSpec [6], and it is considered as an
essential component in the OBO Foundry project [7, 8].