Reading “Local-Global: Reconciling Mismatched Ontologies in Development Information Systems” by Jessica Seddon and Wallack Ramesh Srinivasan reminded me of peoples’ struggle to reconcile their identity within a system of classifications. After the resource day at UCLA, I realized that there were too many organizations that I should join. I picked three organizations that best represented my interest and identity. However, I ended up devoting myself to only one organization. My other two interest had to be discarded for the meantime. Therefore, my other interests will be lost to the organization that I chose. If my understanding of the reading is correct, an organization representing a single demographic or interest is a mismatch to what defines an individual. Jessica Seddon and Wallack Ramesh Srinivasan notes that “While any groups ontology is unlikely to match that of every individual within the group, the extent of mismatch tends to increase with the scale of the group and the differences between the purpose of individual and group ontologies.” Ideally, an individual should not be broken up between three interest, but should have one organization that addresses his or her interest in its entirety. Instead of choosing an organization that fits one criteria and leaves out the rest of my interests, I chose an organization that was the most diverse in an attempt to keep my interests broad.
I searched the web for a visual example of an ontology related to the reading and found this simple visualization beginning with a lion and an antelope. The diagram of the two animals resemble the way classifications are divided and the way they relate. The over simplified diagram of the two animals only leads to further classifications. The problem addressed by Seddon and Wallack is that when information is not “inclusive” or “collaborative” to the community, a mismatch of information takes place. For instance, to further develop this animal ontology, one can create a way for people to add more information about lions and antelopes. The classification process does not really tell us much what is really a lion or an antelope. This visual ontology is suppose to represent lions and antelopes, but because of their classification, information that defines a lion and an antelope are lost. The ontology, therefore, is not reality all the time. Each organization had it’s own ontology that best represents that organizations goals. However, since most organizations specialize to serve the interest of a specific demographic, an individual with a multitude of interests will struggle to reconcile his or her conflicting interests.
Sources:
Seldon, Jessica and Srinivasn, Ramesh Wallack. “Local-Global: Reconciling Mismatched Ontologies in Development Information Systems”. 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2009. http://rameshsrinivasan.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/18-WallackSrinivasanHICSS.pdf. Web. 20 Oct. 14
web. image. http://www.scientific-computing.com/features/feature.php?feature_id=37