Embedded Files
ChurchCore is a technical ontology supporting Christian Evangelism and Discipleship.
Ontologies are essentially structured models that define the concepts, entities, and relationships within a particular area of interest.
Technical ontologies play a crucial role in knowledge representation, data integration, semantic web technologies, and artificial intelligence. They enable machines to understand and reason about information in a standardized way, fostering interoperability and facilitating more effective knowledge management.
This effort is foundational to delivering on relational and holistic digital engagement.
Christian Discipleship:
In contrast to our current Western era, learning in Jesus’ time was very relational and holistic. "Discipleship meant much more than just the transfer of information . . . it referred to imitating the teacher’s life, inculcating his values, and reproducing his teachings.
It is a relational word; it speaks about growing intimacy with God and informed obedience in all our relationships. link
Ontology (context of knowledge sharing):
“Is a description (like a formal specification of a program) of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents. This definition is consistent with the usage of ontology as set-of-concept-definitions, but more general.” link
“A body of formally represented knowledge is based on a conceptualization: the objects, concepts, and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them ...” (Genesereth & Nilsson, 1987)
Why is ChurchCore Ontology so important?
Accepting Jesus Christ as his or her Savior, involve many bite-sized steps over time. Today, many of these interactions can happen online incorporating multiple Christian organizations and trusted mentors.
Online Church engagement is going through a huge transformation. Web3.0 is transformative in that it drives true relational and holistic engagement rather than just application centric atomic transactions. Web3.0 engagement is centered on an individual’s desired outcomes and involves multiple touch points over a long time span to achieve those outcomes. The transformative part is that the individual is at the center.
Establishing a common language of concepts, entities, relationships, and flows is an essential part of making this type of seamless engagement a reality.
Todays shortcomings: Mandating the use of a single centrally managed physical infrastructure and framework to achieve interoperability within an industry is rarely successful. Technology is always moving forward and healthy competing interests are always at play. A lightweight Church core ontology overcomes these issues by allowing applications to communicate and share data without requiring them to use a common centrally managed physical infrastructure.
A light-weight ontology will serve to unify the language used by applications within the Church eco-system. This unification will support application interoperability and provide a more seamless personal experience. For this to work the Church technology community must agree on a common core ontology. Wow, that’s a big ask.
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is working to provide the foundation for these types of core ontologies. W3C Prov-O is a key foundational ontology that covers provenance where models center on Entities, Activities and People/Organizations (Agents). W3C Semantic Web Standards like RDF (Resource Description Framework) and OWL (W3C Web Ontology Language) are used to capture these flows.
Innovations like Web3.0 Identity, blockchain, AI, augmented reality and metaverse require this semantic vocabulary. The semantic meaning of data is an essential component to all of these technologies.
ChurchCore Ontology leverages proven W3C Ontological concepts and patterns.
Personal Faith Journey
Personal Faith Journey
We start this ontology discussion from the perspective of the individuals Personal Faith Journey. This Faith Journey starts with seeking, learning, and growing in understanding of the "good news" of salvation through Jesus Christ.
"Christian Spiritual Formation" captures the journey towards discipleship. This Personal Spiritual Formation journey culminates with the Explorer making a declaration of faith and accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The outward declaration of this faith decision through baptism marks the beginning of their Christian Discipleship.
The Church is called to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you" (28:19-20)
Relationship between the Person and Ministry Agent is essential component of this mandate. Ministry Relationship and associated Ministry Activities capture this concept, as shown below.
"Agent" W3C definition: "An agent is something that bears some form of responsibility for an activity taking place."
"Ministry Agent" is an abstract concept that represents the various types of Ministry Agents (Organization, Person, Software Agent), as shown below.
A persons faith journey consists of key personal faith milestones of Repentance, Faith, New birth, and Transformation. We use the principle of "Time Varying Concept" to capture this journey.
Personal Faith Journey is unique to each Individual.
A person traveling from their home in Denver to their parents home in Austin has the option of flying, driving, train, bus, cycling, or even walking. Each of these options can take multiple routes. But, all routes have a common starting point: "Joe at home in Denver" (manifestation), and a common target destination: "Joe at parents home in Austin" (manifestation).
Similarly, Joe's "Spiritual Faith Formation" and "Christian Discipleship" can take many routes to his target destination of salvation, arriving at his Fathers House.
At every point in his journey Joe will be in places (manifestations) which enable him to participate in Activities that result in him moving forward. At every step "The Church" will come along side addressing Joe's physical, emotional, intellectual, social or spiritual needs.
Christian Discipleship
Process of maturing in your faith and becoming more like Christ.
Christian Discipleship
Process of maturing in your faith and becoming more like Christ.
Discipleship starts when the person accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. At that point they become a Disciple of Jesus Christ and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Their Discipleship begins.
Christian discipleship is centered on following Jesus, learning from his teachings, and imitating his life. It's about the individuals spiritual transformation and growth.
Christian Ministry
Christian Ministry
"To Serve", "To Minister": Service to God and to other people in His name
Pastor, Minister: Person who serves
Ministry can, and should, include ministering to the physical, emotional, mental, vocational, and financial needs of others. Jesus did, and so should we!
Our Strategic Intent
Our Strategic Intent
We see an opportunity to help ministries better share the Word of God.
Our Purpose (the why):
To be a Catalyst for Change.
Our Vision (the aspirational what):
Thriving and Integrated Local, Regional and World Ministries.
Our Mission (how do we get there):
Help build a Rich and Unifying Domain Ontology that fosters Robust Evangelism and Discipleship
Ministries empowered to Reach, Engage and Foster Discipleship
Our Strategy (our approach):
Connect the dots. Show how a ChurchCore foundational ontology helps create thriving and integrated ministries
Build Community. Local Churches, Outreach Ministries, Technology Advocates, Application Providers, Solution Providers.
Experiment, Experiment, Experiment.
Now is the time
Now is the time
Who, in the "technology" world, gets to define the semantic meaning of words and expressions?
Who, in the "technology" world, gets to build applications that drive online engagement.
Who gets to shape Individuals Beliefs, Values and Behavior?
Today, the scales are definitely tilted in favor of those who have a "Secular Worldview".
Our Strategic Aims,
Build out a core ontology that supports the following ministry centric aims
Reach
Provide laser focused targeting with full regional and demographic coverage.
Meet people where they are at.
Engage
Provide Relational, Holistic and Seamless online and in-person Engagement.
Help people become like Jesus and join him on mission.
Deliver
Deliver on Local Church Strategic Purpose, Vision and Mission
Unleash missional followers of Jesus, fueled by local congregations
Simple example of leveraging ontology to drive local church digital engagement.
Simple example of leveraging ontology to drive local church digital engagement.
Today, almost all churches have a website. The vast majority of these church websites define their church Vision and Mission.
Vision: Aspirational statement of What the church Aims to achieve
Mission: Statement of How to achieve the Vision and associated Activities
Many of these websites also include a statement of Purpose which explains Why they do what they do. Some churches also include their Core Values and Beliefs which are tied into their Purpose.
examples:
50 church mission statements 12 church mission statements 13 church mission statements
Today, search engines do little to properly aggregate this information and serve it up to Explorers who are looking for answers. These engines have difficulty establishing the semantic meaning of this content.
ChurchCore Ontology provides a framework that gives context to these terms and their relationships. Here is a graphical depiction.
This graph is codified using OWL. "The W3C Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a Semantic Web language designed to represent rich and complex knowledge about things, groups of things, and relations between things." details
Usage
Authors mark their content with semantic HTML tags like:
<organization>,<strategic-purpose>, <vision>, <mission>, <aim>, <strategy>, <goal>, <objective>
Benefits
Term usage and meaning will be consistent between church sites. It motivates authors to use concepts and terms like Purpose, Vision, Mission, Core Values, and Core Beliefs "properly".
Browsing applications can create tailored presentation of the content based on the specific content tags
Aggregation applications like search engines can leverage these semantic HTML tags to make their results more relevant and consistent.
This ontology can also be used to help construct an API where other applications can request information regarding these topics.
Supercharge engagement by incorporating church Group specific Purpose, Vision and Mission content with semantic HTML tags.
Bible Study Groups
Life Groups
Community Groups
Serving Group
Small Group best practices and examples
Creating a vision statement for a small group
Examples of small group vision statements
Other examples
Second example, online engagement that helps shape personal Beliefs, Values and Behavior
Second example, online engagement that helps shape personal Beliefs, Values and Behavior
Sensory overload. Photo's, Video's, Music, News Headlines, Messages, Blogs, etc. The flood of online content is orchestrated to shape our thinking regarding "Things" like products, people, cultures, situations, etc.
These online experiences drive much of our attitudes and feelings towards these "Things". These Attitudes and Feelings fuel our actions.
I really feel like I need a new car.
That politician is just horrible.
Secular Worldview:
Organize your life in a way that benefits you
Actions based on Feelings which are rooted in your own personal Experiences
Things (objects, people, earth, creatures) are at the center of your belief system
A Different Way (Christian Worldview),
A Christian worldview is rooted in the teachings of the Bible and the belief in Jesus Christ.
learning in Jesus’ time was very relational and holistic
our goal: providing online engagement in a way that fills the individual with a sense of Purpose that centers on Core Beliefs and Values rooted in Scripture.
Selflessness
Gratitude
Grace
Honesty
Foster an environment of Trust,
foster relationship
create context and connection
define a way forward
track progress
That follows Gods ways,
teachings of Jesus Christ and adherence to the principles outline in Scripture
A Selfless Attitude is learnt.
This type of engagement requires a richness of language and expression.
ChurchCore Technical Ontology
ChurchCore Technical Ontology
Provenance (Agent, Activity, Entity)
Provenance (Agent, Activity, Entity)
Provenance is a key foundational principle of the ChurchCore Technical Ontology. Provenance refers to the documented history or origin of things. It captures the events that happened during the lifetime of data sometimes referred to as the 7W.
What happened Activity that occurred
How did it Happen Actions taken
Where did it happen Space, Location
When did it happen Time
Who was involved Agent (Person, Organization)
Which people Agent
Why did it happen Purpose, Intention
As we dive deeper into the ChurchCore Ontology the importance of Provenance will become clear. The first two examples, shown above, centered on the Why, What and How of things
W3C PROV standard defines a data model, serializations, and definitions to support the interchange of provenance information on the Web. details
For Provenance we read right to left. Advice Request (Entity) was generated by Asked for Advice (Activity) which was associated with Sue (Agent). We track direction by looking at the Subject - Predicate - Object flow of relationships.
Many times relationships like "wasAssociatedWith" require their own class to capture the richness of the relationship. We call this Reification. So wasAssociatedWith relationship is turned into a concrete Class that captures the association. In the case of Association the Class includes the Role the Agent Played in the Activity and a Plan to achieve an intended Goal.
Again note the right to left relationships that are used to capture provenance information. The wasAssociatedWith relationship is qualified (amplified) with the characterization provided by the Association class. In this example below we learn that Sue played role of Mentee in Asking for Advice and Sue's Plan was aimed at making a decision.
Example of Sue (Person) Asked for Advice (Activity), Joe (Person) Gave Advice (Activity) and Sue Received Advice (Activity). Note the language shown below captures What happened (As Executed). The flow goes clockwise with Sue receiving Advice to Joe Giving Advice and finally Sue Asking for Advice (from end to start).
These Activities followed a Plan. Note that this is Sue's Plan of Getting Advice so that she can make a decision. It does not include Joe's Activity of Gotten Advice.
Activity of "Gave Advice" is captured in more detail below.
RDF document (shown below) is a textual representation of the graph shown above. Note that the RDF is stored in a knowledge base and can be queried using SPARQL. This information can also be used to tune an AI LLM to support Natural Language Queries.
<rdf:RDF>
<!-- http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Gives_Advice -->
<owl:NamedIndividual rdf:about="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Gives_Advice">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Behavior"/>
</owl:NamedIndividual>
<!-- http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#JoePeters -->
<owl:NamedIndividual rdf:about="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#JoePeters">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Person"/>
</owl:NamedIndividual>
<!-- http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Joe_Gave_Advice -->
<owl:NamedIndividual rdf:about="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Joe_Gave_Advice">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#Activity"/>
<prov-cc:hadBehavior rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Gives_Advice"/>
<prov:generated rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Advice_Response"/>
<prov:qualifiedAssociation rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Joe_Gives_Advice_Association"/>
<prov:used rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Advice_Request"/>
</owl:NamedIndividual>
<!-- http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Joe_Gives_Advice_Association -->
<owl:NamedIndividual rdf:about="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Joe_Gives_Advice_Association">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#Association"/>
<prov-cc:hadBehavior rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Gives_Advice"/>
<prov:agent rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#JoePeters"/>
</owl:NamedIndividual>
<!-- http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Advice_Request -->
<owl:NamedIndividual rdf:about="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Advice_Request">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#Entity"/>
</owl:NamedIndividual>
<!-- http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Advice_Response -->
<owl:NamedIndividual rdf:about="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Advice_Response">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#Entity"/>
<prov:wasGeneratedBy rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#JoePeters"/>
</owl:NamedIndividual>
</rdf:RDF>
Agent (Person, Organization), Relationship and Membership
Agent (Person, Organization), Relationship and Membership
Agent Relationships (Person and Organization Relationships)
Example of Mentor Relationship between two people. Joe is mentor of Sue.
Types of relationships are captured by ontology: https://vocab.org/relationship/
Example of Partner Relationship between two organizations. Bible Church (Local Church) is partner of Gloo (Organization)
Example of JSON-LD (linked data) capturing partner relationship
{
"@context": {
"cc": "http://church-core.org"
},
"@type": "cc:organization",
"@id": "/organization/1",
"name": "Bible Church",
"relationship": {
"@type": "cc:relationship",
"name": "Gloo Partnership",
"organization": {
"@type": "cc:organization",
"@id": "/organization/39",
"name": "Gloo"
},
"correspondsTo": {
"@type": "cc:relationshipSpec",
"name": "Partner Relationship",
"hasSubjectRole": {
"@type": "cc:role",
"name": "Outreach Role"
},
"hasObjectRole": {
"@type": "cc:role",
"name": "Partner Role"
},
}
}
}
Ministry Agent, Activity, Action
Ministry can, and should, include ministering to the physical, emotional, mental, vocational, and financial needs of others.
"Agent" W3C definition: "An agent is something that bears some form of responsibility for an activity taking place."
"Ministry Agent" is an abstract concept that represents the various types of Ministry Agents (Organization, Person, Software Agent), as show below.
An action refers to a single, specific deed or step taken as part of an activity. It is more concrete and specific than an activity.
A Ministry Agent provides services to individuals identified as the Ministry Audience. For example "He Gets Us" Super Bowl commercial targeted a general group of Explorers.
These services (Ministry Activity) are Associated with Ministry Agents. For example the "He Gets Us" Super Bowl commercial Ministry Activity is associated with "He Gets Us, LLC Organization".
These services (Ministry Activity) are directed at achieving specific Ministry Objectives. For example the "He Gets Us" Super Bowl Commercial has an objective of getting the Explorer to go to "He Gets Us" web site and browse the content.
Example of "He Gets Us" Alpha Outreach through their "He Gets Us" website Alpha Search Page. Another example of "Flatirons Church" providing Alpha Class Fulfillment via their Alpha Classes.
Organization
W3C Organization Ontology for organizational structures and relationships. details
Person
SPARQL Query
Retrieve all wifes from Erie
PREFIX rc: <http://richcanvas.io/ns#>
PREFIX rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>
SELECT ?person ?locality
WHERE {
?person rdf:type rc:Person .
?person rc:hasFamilyMembership ?membership .
?membership rdf:type rc:FamilyMembership .
?membership rc:hasFamilyRole rc:Wife .
?person rc:hasHomeAddress ?address .
?address rc:addressLocality "Erie"
}
Friend-of-a-Friend (foaf) Ontology
Person GraphQL query for profile information
Person Ontology
query {
person {
__typename,
id,
name {
__typename,
id,
firstName,
lastName,
fullName
},
address {
__typename
id,
streetAddress,
addressLocality,
addressRegion,
postalCode
},
jsonLd
}
}
GraphQL query result with JSON-LD extension
"data": {
"person": {
"__typename": "Person",
"id": "3",
"name": {
"__typename": "PersonName",
"id": "701",
"firstName": "Joe",
"lastName": "Smith",
"fullName": "Joe Smith"
},
"address": {
"__typename": "Address",
"id": "31",
"streetAddress": "601 W. Adams St",
"addressLocality": "Colorado Springs",
"addressRegion": "CO",
"postalCode": "80654"
},
"jsonLd": {
"@context": {
"cc": "http://church-core.org"
},
"@id": "3",
"@type": "cc:person",
"name": {
"@id": "701",
"@type": "cc:person-name",
"firstName": "Smith",
"fullName": "Joe Smith"
},
"address": {
"@id": "31",
"@type": "cc:address",
"streetAddress": "601 W. Adams St",
"addressLocality": "Colorado Springs",
"addressRegion": "CO",
"postalCode": "80654"
}
}
}
}
}
Entities like person can also be represented in JSON in terms of properties, but still leverage the ontology
<owl:NamedIndividual rdf:about="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#JoePeters">
<rdf:type rdf:resource="http://www.richcanvas.io/prov-cc#Person"/>
<prov-cc:familyName>Peters</prov-cc:familyName>
<prov-cc:givenName>Joe</prov-cc:givenName>
</owl:NamedIndividual>
Behavioristics in a Multi-Agent Environment
Behavioristics in a Multi-Agent Environment
Agent Behaviors and their effects on other Agent Behavior.
A multi-agent environment can represent multiple people interacting, organizations and people, people and software agents, or just software agents.
In our journey to define an ontology that supports relational and holistic phygital (physical and digital) engagement it became clear that we must capture the true interactions between people, organizations and software agents.
We started this document presenting examples of both Organization and Person (Human) behavior that incorporated beliefs, values, goals, and activities. Now we are going to incorporate Software Agent behavior into the Person and Organizational flows that we talked about previously.
In the computer science space multi-agent interaction are relatively well understood. It is often used in describing Internet-of-Things (IoT) workflows. In the software space there is a class of design patterns referred to as "Behavioral Design Patterns" that capture types of behavior in a multi-agent setting.
To capture the nature of activities, like Campaigns, which incorporate people, organizations and technology we need a unified (phygital) way of describing this multi-agent behavior.
Lets look at a quick example,
Today, ministries leverage Campaigns to do all sorts of things. A Campaign can be as simple as sending out a bunch of news letters or as complex as the "He Gets Us" campaign that incorporated Super Bowl Ads funneling folks to local churches.
A Campaign represents a series of activities (Process) that is focused on achieving some particular goal.
We will look at Campaign activities through the lens of the Target Audience Agent. In the case of the "He Gets Us" Campaign this would be the "Explorer" viewing the Ad.
People are an essential component of any Campaign. In the case of "He Gets Us" Explorers watch commercials, navigate to and view special targeted online content, send inquiry message, and receive message responses. A church team member gets connected to an Explorer and engages them via messaging.
Many personal interactions incorporate Software Agents that support or perform activities. The Explorer is reliant on the TV app to show the commercial, mobile phone apps to navigate and view content, mobile phone app to send and receive messages. The church team member leverages online apps to be notified of pending Explorer requests, being guided with possible responses, and apps to message the Explorer.
It was not surprising to see that the mobile phone "CoPilot" application shared a relatively uninspiring opinion of "He Gets Us", but it did provide a link to the hegetsus.org site. The "CoPilot" Software Agent presented content based on its "Beliefs" and "Values" or rather the "Beliefs" and "Values" of the company producing that application and establishing their source material.
Here is an example of the Executed flow that captures What Happened. Notice that this diagram is read from right to left. Starting with the final result of the Church Member being notified and read back to the Explorer viewing the TV Commercial. This diagram leverages core principles from the W3C Prov-O Ontology of Agent, Activity and Entity.
ChurchCore Ontology, shown above, provides a common vocabulary that can be used to capture "What Happened". Future solutions, like the Explorers Digital Wallet, will be able to securely store information regarding all these interactions and call upon that information to drive robust future digital engagement. The other Agents like TV App, CoPilot, Messaging App, Ministry Sites, and Church Members will only have fragments of the Explorers journey and hopefully be restricted on what they can retain. Maintaining a common vocabulary over all these interactions allows the Explorer to connect the dots and retain the information in their digital wallet.
A Campaign like "He Gets Us" could be incorporated into an overall "Journey" Campaign. Where something like "He Gets Us" seeds a long term Explorer Journey that blends relational and holistic engagement.
That type of engagement would involve activities that cover,
What might happen, future (Planned, Proposed, Scheduled)
What is happening, current (Underway)
What has happened, past (Completed)
At each stage in their Journey the Explorer maintains a set of goals and objectives they are working toward.
Holistic and Relational Engagement
Holistic meaning the right alignment of one's actions and goals with their core beliefs and values where those beliefs and values are rooted in scripture. And relational in that growth and development occur best within the context of relationships with others, and that fruits of the spirit are relational characteristics.
Accepting Jesus Christ as his or her Savior, involve many bite-sized steps over time. This Journey is rarely a linear path forward.
The Journey is not exclusively about self-awareness, introspection and personal growth as most world views would dictate. Its involves accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and adhering to the core beliefs and values defined in scripture.
This type of growth involves considerable Conflict for most Explorers. The fundamental Conflict between their Intent to change and their core personal beliefs and values. If ones core values are centered on self and self fulfillment it becomes hard to kick a habit like alcoholism. On the other hand having core values that emulate Jesus' example of compassion, kindness, and selflessness in their relationships with others significantly reduces the inherent friction of change.
We will now look at the fundamental language surrounding Behavior of People, Organizations and Software Agents and the effects of that Behavior within a multi-agent eco-system.
Agent Behavior governed by Intent (Desired Outcome)
Agents perform Actions to achieve some type of desired outcome. The Intent behind these Actions is not always apparent to others.
Within a multi-agent environment, such as in discipleship, having a clear understanding of a persons Intent can be essential. As shown below, Communications plays a key part in understanding and correctly responding to an Agents true intentions. This is as true in Software Agent to Software Agent Communication as it is between people. Natural Language Processors take a bunch of text in and attempt to decipher what is the "true" Intent behind the question. In the case of a chat bot the Natural Language Processor has some Context based on previous questions asked. The chat bot also might have some prior knowledge about the larger goals the Requesting Agent is trying to achieve. This all contributes to the Responding Agent ability to better serve the Requesting Agent.
Going back to the "He Get Us" campaign lets look at how the "Processor Agent" might interpret the Intent of a Prayer request coming in.
The message processor is given quite a bit of information that can help the Church Team Member pray for Joe. The message processor will perform a series of Tasks to infer additional information and establish next steps.
Breaking down the components of Multi-Agent Behavioristics
Activity Role ("way things are done), description
Activity ("doing of the things"), operations
The distinction between "way things are done" and "doing of the things" is very important in capturing multi-agent behavior. This is one of the largest areas of ambiguity among leading foundational ontologies.
iCity Foundational Ontology started with Activity and Activity Occurrence and then combined the two concepts into Activity in their latest version. iCity includes State as a key concept to describe pre-conditions and effects of an Activity. Activity occurs at some point in time and space. With the removal of ActivityOccurrence iCity Ontology does not have a clear delineation between specification and execution of Activity.
Semantic Arts gistCore upper ontology has Event with Subclasses Scheduled Event, Contemporary Event, and Historical Event. gistCore uses Template to describe things like set of instructions or a Recipe.
BFO Ontology bifurcate their entire ontology based on Continuant and Occurrent. Where Occurrent are entities that unfold or occur in time. iCity follows this same bifurcation in defining TimeVaryingConcept and Manifestation. BFO does not provide a clear distinction between the specification of a plan and the execution of that specification.
Common Core Ontology represent the specification of an activity as a Process class. Then the Individual Instance of that class as the occurrence of that type of activity. This approach leads to creating a very large ontology because every type of activity needs to be represented as a formal ontology class. Our goal is to provide an ontology that represent Activity Role concepts and relationships.
ChurchCore Ontology makes a very clear distinction between these concepts by explicitly including "Activity Role" and "Activity".
The difference between Activity Role and Activity comes down to intent.
"Doing of things" implies Operational Intent. At some point ones (Person or Organization) Intent turns from Thinking/Outlining to actual Operations (Doing of Things). At that point you need to use semantics (Activity) that capture the act of doing which involves future, current and past operational things. These operational semantics need to reference back to corresponding Activity Role, but need to be semantically separate to capture the execution of things. Activity Operational covers past, current, and future temporal context.
Way things are done
(Specifications)
We leveraged EP-Plan concepts to build this part of the Ontology. link
Easter Sermon Series Campaign Example
The "Sermon Series Campaign" has an associated "Sermon Series Plan". The Sermon Series Plan defines the steps involved in executing the Sermon Series. This is a Rolling Series that starts at the date of subscription and continues based on the delta days set for each campaign step. The Campaign Manager supported Subscriptions starting February 1st and Continues to March 1st.
The yellow circles capture the Steps of the Campaign of Receiving a Study link, Sermon 1, Sermon 2, Sermon 3, Assessment and then Receiving a Completion Notification. Note that these are in yellow because they represent Entities that define the Plan. These steps don't represent actual Activities being executed.
On March 1st Joe subscribes to the Sermon Series, the last day available. Joe's subscription triggers the creation of a Series of Actions that correspond to each of the Planned Steps.
The "Campaign Manager" Responsible Agent is responsible for executing each of the Actions at the prescribed times.
Note that on March 3rd some of the actions defined for Joe have been executed, some are being executed, and some are yet to be executed.
This example shows a clear Intent difference between the planning of the Campaign and Joe's actual Execution.
The Sermon Series Campaign might also use Fixed Dates. Meaning that all actions are set for a predefined set of dates. Everyone who subscribed for Sermon Series will have actions defined for the same set of dates. Every person will have their own set of Actions defined for the prescribed dates.
Like above, the Campaign Manager is responsible for executing the actions.
Subscription Tasks Example
The Easter Sermon Series Campaign also has to define how Sermon Subscriptions are handled. This Subscription workflow defines what Groups the User is put in, what initialization actions need to take place, who needs to be alerted and what message to send back to the subscriber. This workflow actually kicks off the "Sermon Series Plan" defined above.
A Task is a Planned Activity. A set of Tasks, defined within a Workflow, inform the processor what to do when a person subscribes.
A Subscription Processor Responsible Agent executes this series of tasks for each users subscription. So when Joe subscribes the process generates a series of specific Actions supporting Joes Sermon Series. Note that in this example the "Initialize Action" actually results in a Sub-Series of actions being created that supports the actual Sermon Series.
Doing of things
(Operations)
A sizable part of this ontology is dedicated to capturing the concepts behind the "Doing of things".
We use the term "Activity" to express the operational nature of this type of behavior. "Activity" can represent Actions anticipated, Actions in progress, and Actions completed. The flow of these diagrams are left to right and provide a stateful understanding of where things are at as they happen.
Both "Sermon Plan Steps" and "Subscription Workflow Tasks" shown in the previous section included flows for Operational Activities. In both of these cases we captured Activities involving Joe.
In all of these cases the Activities Executed corresponded directly to Activity Role.
State-Based Behavioristics
In describing the state changes of things in response to a Series of Activities it is good to use State based semantics. This approach is an effective way of modeling things like a persons "Faith Journey". A Person typically starts their Journey with one State of mind (beliefs, values, behaviors) and end with a Kingdom Minded State (beliefs, values, behaviors).
Here are some examples of how Activity Role and State describe types of Behavior. In these examples we show both Activity Role (Exercise) as well as the operational manifestation of State (Joe Energized) and actual Activities (Joe 30 minute run). Note that Manifestation and Activity are Occurrent classes which are a function of time.
These examples follow the Concepts and Relationships shown below. The key concepts center on Specification through ActivitySpec and State, and Operations through TimeVaryingConcept and Manifestation.
A ConjunctiveState can serve as a preCondition as well as an efffect of an Activity Role. As a preCondition it can bring together two or more conditions like an Activity Role of "take a UBER ride" has a preCondition of "having an UBER reservation" AND "being at pickup stop". ConjunctiveState Effect example is "Driving to Work" Activity Role has an effect of "Driver at Work" AND "Car at Work".
Process Role and Process
The relationships of a series of Activities and their Effects in a Multi-Agent environment are modeled using Process Concepts.
Process: things that occur over time.
Process Role includes a series of Activity Roles and set of States.
Process includes a series of Activities and bundle of Manifestations.
Things like a Recipe or Procedure (Process Role) capture a series of Activity Roles and associated States.
mix two table spoons of sugar and one cube of butter in a mixing bowl .... cook for 20 minutes at 300 deg. until cookies are brown on top.
We could then capture my wife and daughter making cookies as they follow this recipe by using a series of "Operational" Activity terms describing their Process.
Jane "puts two table spoons of sugar and one cube of butter in bowl", then Mary "mixed the ingredients up", then Jane ....
Capturing Process concepts, like that of Activity, has proved challenging for leading foundational ontologies. Earlier we presented how EP-Plan Ontology leverages terms like Plan, Step and Variable to represent a Process Role. W3C Prov-O captures the corresponding Operational concepts with Bundle, Activity and Entity classes that we refer to as Process.
ChurchCore clearly delineates between specification of a process and the actual execution of that process through "Process Role" and "Process" classes.
Ontology discussion of these terms and their relation link. This article provides a good discussion of the relationships between Process Role, Activity Role and State. The article does not differentiate between Specification and Operations things.
We follow many of the iCity Ontology principles in defining our ChurchCore Ontology link. iCity provide a good discussion of operational things like TimeVaryingConcept and Manifestation. They also cover specification things like iCity Activity (our Activity Role) and iCity State. Note that in their discussion Activity is now used for both Specification and Operations which confuses things a bit.
To gain a better understanding of State-Based Behavioristics we are going to look at a Vacation. The concepts behind a Vacation center on "Doing of Things". A Vacation is an Process, and captures a Series of Activities. The example below describes the Vacation Joe is taking in Israel. Joe's Israel Vacation includes a series of Activities like Flights, Hotel Stays, Tours, and Bus Rides.
Vacation Example
Vacation Planning often starts with defining a Itinerary. The Itinerary is a Specification that provides an outline for the vacation.
Joe's Israel Itinerary (February, 2024 for 2 weeks)
Depart on Feb 3rd
Arrive in Israel on Feb 4th
3 days in Jerusalem (Tour in Old City, Mount of Olives, City of David, ...)
3 days in Sea of Galilea
2 days in Dead Sea
2 days in Petra
3 days in Tel Aviv and the area
Return home on Feb 17th
Overtime this Itinerary will include greater detail describing the Vacation.
At some point Joe, or his Agent, starts to make Travel Reservations for Airlines, Hotels, Tours and other Activities. This is when he transitions from describing "Things to be Done" to "Doing of Things".
When Joe leaves and is in route to Israel he continues to add additional Activities to his Vacation. Note that during the Vacation Joe has Activities that have happened, Activities underway, and Activities yet to happen. At anytime Joe can generate a more detailed Itinerary from the Vacation Activity details.
Joe's Israel Vacation => Series of "Activities"
Uber from home to Denver Airport
Fly from Denver to Ben Gurion Airport
Uber from Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem Hotel
Hotel Stay in Jerusalem Hotel
Night 1, Night 2, Night 3 (Sub-Series)
Dinner at Mikes Pizza
Day Tour of Old Jerusalem
Uber to Sea of Galilee Hotel
Hotel Stay at Sea of Galilee Hotel
Night 1, Night 2, Night 3 (Sub-Series)
Joe's Vacation (Process) -> Series of Activities
Note that each Activity has an associated condition that enables it and and a resulting effect that the activity causes. The condition defines what needs to happen before the Activity can take place. The effect defines the Outcome of the Activity. The Activity is also defined by a set of Instantaneous Events that capture the Departure and Arrival Times. An Operational Activity usually corresponds to an Activity Role that models these relationships with preCondition and hasEffects relationships.
Example of how vacation can change.
Note that Joe's Journey takes a turn. Initially Joe had a direct Plane Ticket to Israel on Plane ABC and then he got routed through New York on Plane XYZ because the Plane ABC did not arrive in Denver. Joe AND Plane ABC bound for Israel did not get realized. Joe was there with a Ticket in hand but the Plane did not arrive.
In the next section, where we introduce Reasoner and Rules, we will explore these types of State based Behavioristics within a multi-agent eco-system. In many cases we don't need to capture all possible manifestations and activities but rather capture the foundational Rules and allow the Reasoner to project forward based on current and projected manifestations information.
..
Knowledge Base, Rules and Reasoners
Knowledge Base, Rules and Reasoners
A knowledge base (KB) is a repository of structured information, facts, and rules about a specific topic. For example, we might maintain a knowledge base around a persons "Faith Journey". We imagine a time when a persons digital wallet will maintain their own private knowledge base which captures their "Faith Journey".
This knowledge base would incorporate a Reasoner that performs automated reasoning over the knowledge base and infer new information. The Reasoner would take in existing Manifestations and infer future State based on a set of Rules.
A Rule consists of Conditions and Actions where an Action can infer new Manifestations. These new Manifestations can meet another Rules Condition and trigger further down stream actions.
In the example of one Faith Journey, the Reasoner could factor in things like:
stated goals and objectives
stated beliefs, values, attitudes, feelings
past behavior
mentor insights and recommendations
available resources (local, online)
Faith Journey best practices based on Scripture
Based on this information the Reasoner could infer possible paths forward. Maybe suggesting a "Next Step". The Next Step might be as simple as suggesting they reach out to their men's group to pray for them as they go to that Superbowl Party. The Reasoner might even construct a prayer request that is ready to be modified and sent.
Having this capability running right in a persons digital wallet makes it accessible and entirely private. This kind of capability requires that the private knowledge base leverage a robust ontology so that the Reasoner can be "Intelligent enough".
Mapping Rules and Reasoner to Multi-Agent Behavior
We use Rules and Rules Execution to model Agent Behavior.
Rule models an Activity Role
Rule Execution models an Agent Action
The Knowledge Base Reasoner can playout scenarios based on Rules.
JoeTrip Knowledge Base Example with Rule Engine and SPARQL Query
An example Knowledge Base that leverages the richcanvas foundational ontology to capture Joe's Trip. It covers the first two activities of Joe "RideToTerminal" and "WalkToGate".
The knowledge base is seeded with "JoeTraveler" Traveler TimeVaryingConcept and "JoeAtHome" Travel Manifestation. "JoeAtHome" Manifestation triggers chaining rules TravelFromHomeToAirport and TravelFromTerminalToGate that generate "JoeAtDeparture" and "JoeAtGate" Travel Manifestations. The chaining rules also generate "JoeRideToAirport" and "JoeWalkToGate" Activities that are associated with the three Travel Manifestations.
The SPARQL Query searches for all of Joe's Activities. This query could be used to generate an Itinerary for Joe's Trip.
This examples serves as a demonstration of what could run in a Travelers Digital Wallet and provide a continually updated Itinerary as a Traveler books reservations and travels. Imagine this same capability providing a person an update on their personal and private wallet based "Faith Journey".
This ontology and personal knowledge base could work in conjunction with an AI LLM to support Faith based Natural Language Interaction. The key in all of this is to have an ontology that drives a robust conversation and technology that supports a private and secure knowledge base.
richcanvas foundational ontology github
https://github.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas
richcanvas foundational ontology:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas/main/richcanvas1.0.2.ttl
richcanvas travel example ontology:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas/main/KnowledgeBaseExamples/travel.1.0.1.rdf
joetrip example knowledge base including SWRL Rules: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas/main/KnowledgeBaseExamples/joetrip.rdf
joetrip example SPARQL Queries:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas/main/KnowledgeBaseExamples/JoeTripQueries.txt
SWRL Rules that leverage Activity Role to forward chain from JoeAtHome Manifestation to JoeAtGate32 Manifestation
TravelFromHomeToDepartureTerminal
ns:name(?rideToAirportSpec, "RideToAirport"^^rdf:PlainLiteral) ^ ns:ActivitySpec(?rideToAirportSpec) ^
ns:name(?home, "Home"^^rdf:PlainLiteral) ^ ns:SpatialFeature(?home) ^
ns:hasLocation(?travelerAtHome, ?home) ^ travel:Travel(?travelerAtHome) ^
ns:hasManifestation(?traveler, ?travelerAtHome) ^ travel:Traveler(?traveler) ^
swrlx:makeOWLThing(?rideToAirport, ?travelerAtHome)
->
ns:ActivityOccurance(?rideToAirport) ^ ns:name(?rideToAirport, "rideToAirport"^^rdf:PlainLiteral) ^
ns:enable(?travelerAtHome, ?rideToAirport) ^
ns:correspondsTo(?rideToAirport, ?rideToAirportSpec)
TravelFromDepartureTerminalToGate
ns:name(?walkToGateSpec, "WalkToGate"^^rdf:PlainLiteral) ^ ns:ActivitySpec(?walkToGateSpec) ^
ns:name(?departure, "Departure"^^rdf:PlainLiteral) ^ ns:SpatialFeature(?departure) ^
ns:hasLocation(?travelerAtTerminal, ?departure) ^ travel:Travel(?travelerAtTerminal) ^
ns:hasManifestation(?traveler, ?travelerAtTerminal) ^ travel:Traveler(?traveler) ^
swrlx:makeOWLThing(?walkToGate, ?travelerAtTerminal)
->
ns:ActivityOccurance(?walkToGate) ^ ns:name(?walkToGate, "walkToGate"^^rdf:PlainLiteral) ^
ns:enable(?travelerAtTerminal, ?walkToGate) ^
ns:correspondsTo(?walkToGate, ?walkToGateSpec)
SPARQL Query to generate Itinerary of Activities
PREFIX ns: <http://richcanvas.io/ns#>
PREFIX trvl: <http://richcanvas.io/travel#>
SELECT ?travelName ?activitySpecName
WHERE {
?travel ns:enable ?activity .
?activity ns:correspondsTo ?activitySpec .
?activitySpec ns:name ?activitySpecName .
?travel ns:name ?travelName
}
ChurchCore ontology will allow for a person to have a private knowledge base where these types of SWRL rules can forward chain and infer new Faith Journey insights. The person can ask questions of their private knowledge base where the text question is turned into a SPARQL query using AI Natural Language Processor (NLP), run locally against their private data, and then SPARQL result converted to a textual response using a NLP.
Situation
Situation
Situation involves understanding and interpreting the complex interplay of factors, events, and conditions that define a particular context or moment in time.
Earlier we talked about W3C Prov-O and the role of Provenance. Those concepts primarily focused on "What Happened" where it starts with outcomes and works backward to what lead to those outcomes.
Now we are going to focus on situational concepts where we capture stuff "As it happens".
OMG Commons Ontology leverage principles of Agent, Agent Roles, and Situations (Parties and Situations). Their ontology focuses primarily on relationships between Agents (Person, Organization, Software Agent). ChurchCore ontology blends some of these principles with W3C Prov-O and Plan-P principles to establish a ontology that covers situations that incorporate Agents, Activities and Entities.
Types of Situations:
Relationship Situation
From Agent to Agent of like kind. Person to Person, Organization to Organization
Binary Predicate (Subject - Predicate - Object), This implies a Directional Relationship between Agents.
Object Property defining directional Relationship
Role that the Agents Play in the relationship
Reification of Relationship (class that captures the relationship)
Specification and Occurrence Classes that describe relationship and capture the actual occurrence of Relationship. Specification captures the relationships through subject and object roles. Occurrence Classes capture the specific Agents in the Relationship and the roles they play.
Membership Situation
From Person to Organization
Binary Predicate (Subject - Predicate - Object), Member is Subject and Organization is Object
Object Property (isMemberOf)
Role that the Person plays in the Membership
Reification of Membership (class that captures the membership)
Specification and Occurrence Classes that describe relationship and capture the actual occurrence of the Membership. Specification captures the membership through subject and object roles. Occurrence Classes capture the specific Agents in the Membership and the roles they play.
Participation Situation
From Agent to Activity
Association Situation
From Activity to Agent
Prov-O refers to this as Agent Influence (Association)
Generation Situation
From Activity to Entity
Prov-O refers to this as Activity Influence (Generation)
Communication Situation
From Activity to Activity
Prov-O refers to this as Activity Influence (Communication)
Usage Situation
From Entity to Activity
Prov-O refers to this as Entity Influence (Usage)
Effect Situation, Activity results in Manifestation (state change of TimeVaryingConcept)
From Activity to Manifestation (Entity)
Outcome, Consequence, Influence, Causation is another term for this
Enablement Situation, Manifestation (state of TimeVaryingConcept) enables Activity
From Manifestation (Entity) to Activity
ChurchCore Ontology breaks out the Situation Specification into its own class to capture the "Way things are done" independent of an actual occurrence of "Doing Things". This Specification captures the roles that Agents play in a given type of Situation. For example a "Membership Specification" involves a "Member Role" and a "Organization Role" where the Person plays the Role of Member and a Group plays the Role of a Member bearing Organization.
Knowledge Bases represent information in simple Triples: Subject, Predicate, Object
Membership: "Joe is a Member of the 6:00 Tuesday Men's Group",
Subject: Joe (Person)
Predicate: is a Member of (Membership)
Object: 6:00 Tuesday Men's Group (Organization)
This Persons Situation (is a Member of) is an important relationship that lasts for a time period that we need to represent as its own class. That relationship references both a Person, the Subject, and the Organization, the Object.
Friendship: "Jill is Friend of Joe
Subject: Joe (Person)
Predicate: isFriendOf (Friendship)
Object: Jill (Friend)
Participation: "Joe went Riding",
Subject: Joe (Person)
Predicate: Went (Participation)
Object: Riding (Activity)
"Went" expresses the activity performed by Joe, the subject.
Relationship Situation
Relationship Situation
Relationship represents a directional binary relationship between two like agents. Note that this concept is a directional relationship.
Person to Person
Organization to Organization
Good Friendship example that leverages DOLCE Ontology (link)
Person to Person Relationships
Friendship where Relationship captures that Joe is friend of Jill. Note that this is directional and does not imply that Jill is Joe's friend.
Mentor Relationship, Mentee Relationship
Familial Relationships
Organization to Organization Relationships
Membership Situation & Member Behavior
Membership Situation & Member Behavior
A key part of the ChurchCore Ontology is that it is Person centric. A Person can establish Membership with an Organization and Prove that membership via a verifiable attestation.
For example, a men's group that meets for fellowship on Tuesday Mornings can communicate in a secure manner (messaging, discussions, alerts, etc.) without having to rely on a centrally managed platform. Once an Organization Identity is established the Men can securely receive and store a "Membership Attestation" (secret handshake) in their digital wallet that proves their membership and role within the men's group. All subsequent communications between members includes this Attestation that demonstrates membership and role. At no point is their a centrally managed roster of the men in the group. At no point does their discussion get exposed to people outside the the group.
Our goal is to present a ChurchCore Ontology that can represent both a centralized or decentralized managed Organization. Within the church discipleship there is reason for both types of membership models. We do see an every increasing need for privacy and security surrounding communications and engagement within a body of believers. The introduction of personal digital wallet technology will make this type of private and secure engagement a reality.
Employment
Family
Friends
SPARQL Query
We can use the same SPARQL query to get people associated with Groups, Families and Friends.
Query of the Friends Knowledge Base returns Friends of the Lunch Bunch Friends
Participation Situation
Participation Situation
Earlier we discussed W3C Prov-O Association and how it captures the Role an Agent has in a particular Activity. In this case the Subject was the Activity and the predicate wasAssociatedWith referenced the Agent as an Object of the relationship.
Now we are going to describe concepts and relationships where Agent is the Primary Subject.
Agent to Activity (Participation)
Having the knowledge below allows you to query for all Agent Roles that "Give Advice" (Mentors and Pastors). Ask which people give advice (Mentor Joe, and Pastor Jack). Ask how many people "Give Advice" on Saturday. Participation can be used to capture future, current and past occurrences of the ActivityRole "Give Advice".
Association Situation
Association Situation
Activity to Agent (Association), Provenance (right to left)
ChurchCore Ontology breaks Prov-O Association into two classes. Association Specification that captures the types of associations between Activity Roles and Agent Roles. Association represents the actual occurrence of an Association between an Activity and a Person.
Ministry
Ministry
Church Organizations have Ministries
Organizations like Gloo support Church Ministries
Ministries like Alpha
Examples
Fort Collins Alpha Ministry
Vineyard Of the Rockies in Fort Collins has an Local Alpha Ministry they brand independent of their church with https://alphafoco.com/
He gets us provides access to that local Alpha Ministry https://hegetsus.com/en/resources
Vineyard of the Rockies web site references the local Alpha Ministry https://vineyardotr.org/
ChurchCore Ontology supporting Web3 Architecture Principles
ChurchCore Ontology supporting Web3 Architecture Principles
ChurchCore Ontology is the basis for Standard Interoperability between key components
Composability
ChurchFront Composable Components align with ontology. Nuxt/Vuejs Composable Components, JSON-LD, GraphQL
ChurchPoint GraphQL API integration to Backend Church Management Capabilities
MACH Service Architecture. Third party services like Payment, E-Commerce, Marketing, ...
Wallet Knowledge Base Storage align with ontology. JSON-LD, Turtle, RDF, SPARQL
Church Verifiable Credentials align with ontology
Knowledge Base
OWL 2 format (link to good article on OWL)
Goal is to have all API and data schemas be directly derived from ChurchCore Ontology.
ChurchCore Past, Present, Future Tense
ChurchCore Past, Present, Future Tense
Each ontology like prov-o and foaf have properties with a temporal context. The use of "had...", "was...", "has...", "...ed" add significant complexity in an ontology. We work to be very intentional regarding these terms.
Properties supporting As Executed (Past), Capturing what happened.
hadRole, hadPlan, hadActivity, hadMember, hadUsage
wasAssociatedWith, wasAttributedTo, wasInfluencedBy, wasDerivedFrom, wasGeneratedBy
generated, used, made, knew
startedAtTime, wasStartedBy, generatedAtTime
affected
Properties supporting Current and Future (Present/Future)
uses, make, knows
(has ...) role, address, member, partner. "has" is inferred
isAssociatedWith
Properties relating some Things and associations
Class inheritance
isA
Place
atLocation
Person
address, phone, email, birthday, lastName, firstName, fullName, title, gender, age
Properties supporting Plan, Capture what you have planned (your Journey)
Plan, Step, Objective
coorespondsTo
isStepOfPlan, isPreceededBy
Class and Class Relationships (independent of past, present and future)
Specification (Template), Specification of Journey types
Class like Agent, Entity, Activity
Membership, Relationship, Group, Online Account
Event
Journey includes past and future classes and properties
Past
Current and Future
Past Tense:
"She worked at the bookstore last summer."
Present Tense:
"She works at the bookstore now."
Future Tense:
"She will work at the bookstore next summer."
Has relationship terms
example an Organization has Posts (Church has Leadership Post)
hasPost (Organization -> Post)
isPostOf (Post -> Organization)
Association relationship terms
example a Person holds a Post at a Church
holdsPost (Person -> Post) some term that represents the relationship
isHeldBy (Post -> Person)
Object Detail Properties
specific descriptive Data Property
name, email, phoneNumber, gender, birthdayrelated Object Property
hasAddress, hasRole
isFriendOf, isMemberOf
ChurchCore Ontology Reference Material
ChurchCore Ontology Reference Material
http://richcanvas.io/ns ontology can be downloaded from:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas/main/richcanvas1.0.1.ttl
example knowledge base can be downloaded from:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas/main/KnowledgeBaseExamples/person.rdf
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas/main/KnowledgeBaseExamples/family.rdf
example knowledge base SPARQL queries can be downloaded from:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpedersen3/richcanvas/main/KnowledgeBaseExamples/sparql/FamilyQueries.txt
Time and Duration
startedAtDateTime
endedAtDateTime
W3 Time
http://www.w3.org/2006/time
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/w3c/sdw/gh-pages/time/rdf/time.ttl
Family Terms (Kinship)
https://github.com/microsoft/AI-For-Beginners/blob/main/lessons/2-Symbolic/data/onto.ttl
Person Profile
Semantics-aware approach to employ GraphQL for data integration
Ontology informs the generation of a GraphQL server
https://github.com/LiUSemWeb/OBG-gen
python generation from turtle file
https://github.com/dherault/semantic-graphql/tree/master
javascript generation from turtle file
Creating an Ontology for the User Profile: Method and Applications.
Person Relationships (type of connection)
knows of
friend of
mentor of
apprentice of
knows
friends
relationships: https://vocab.org/relationship/#Relationship
agrelon (agent relationships)
foaf-x including social interaction data and relationships supporting spectrum of human interactions. details
Person Activities
Give Advice, Mentor gives Advice to Apprentice
Answer Questions
Provides Assessment
How relationships effect behavior
Connection
User Behavior
Explorer Agent
Explorer assessment
Explorer search
Explorer navigates website
Explorer sends a message
Extension to support online social interactions
Semantically Interlinked Online Communities (SIOC) details
Engagement
Assessment
Messaging
Membership
Membership
Strategic Purpose, Vision, Mission, Goals, Objectives
Strategic Purpose, Vision, Mission, Goals, Objectives
"The Enterprise Ontology" does a good job of breaking these terms down link
Detailed description of it link
Another good detailed overview link
Open Information Model (OIM)
OIM’s Business Engineering Metamodel (BEM)
concepts (VISION, MISSION AND GOAL patterns)
Good examples link
Purpose link
explains the important distinction between "Held Purpose" and "Intended Purpose"
Held Purpose: Actor holds a "Held Purpose" to achieve some future "State of Affairs"
Intended Purpose: Activity relates to an "Intended Purpose" to achieve some future "State of Affairs". The Activity is the execution of "Activity Role". The "Activity Role" and intended "State of Affairs" is a Plan.
Purpose attributes
measurable
time horizon
specificity
relative priority
Strategy
Strategy
Strategic Purpose: a Held Purpose by an Agent to achieve a curtain State of Affairs. Strategic Purpose, Vision, Mission, Goal, and Objective are examples of an Agents (Organization/Person) Held Purpose.
State of Affairs is captured by a statement of Why, What or How which refers to the existing conditions, circumstances or situation at a particular time.
All of these represent the relationship between an Agent (Organization/Person) and desired State of Affairs.
Strategic Purpose: Why do we exist?
Vision: What we aim to achieve?
Mission: How we get there?
Goal:
Objective:
Example of a Local Church Strategy
Strategic Purpose (Why do we exist?):
"The church exists because God loves us and the world",
"Let the world know that God loves them"
State-of-affair: People know that god loves them
Our Purpose: We let the world know that god loves them
Vision (What we aim to achieve?):
"Reach everyone in the Front Range with the Gospel"
State-of-affair: Have reached everyone in the Front Range with the Gospel
Our Purpose: We reach everyone in the Front Range with the Gospel
Mission (How we get there?):
"We help people become like Jesus and join him on mission"
State-of-affair: People becoming like Jesus and Joining him on mission
Our Purpose: We help people become like Jesus and Join him on mission
Agent (Who we are?):
Church and Partner Ministries
Strategy
"... by unleashing missional followers of Jesus, fueled by local congregations"
Breaking down Strategy and associated Mission into Goals and Objectives
Bridge the gap between Explorer and Local Church (The Chasm)
Bridge the gap between Explorer and Local Church (The Chasm)
Ministries
Reach
Local, Regional, World
Engage
Deliver
on mission ministry
Explorer
Search
Connect
Invitation to connect
Engage
Transform
Emotional Ontology
Good ontology for emotions and feelings
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jannahastings/mental-functioning-ontology/master/ontology/MF.owl
Campaign
Campaign
Knowledge Base
Rule
condition
effect
Good overview of using SWRL rule engine inside of protege
https://protege.stanford.edu/conference/2009/slides/SWRL2009ProtegeConference.pdf
TalonOne is good example of applications that manage Campaigns
Need to give an example of a military mission
Strategic Goals and Objectives
Organization Campaign and associated Goals and Objectives. Map Campaign Goals and Objectives to Strategic Goals and Objectives.
"As Executed" and "As Planned" flows
W3C Prov-O provides the foundational concepts for capturing "as-executed" and "as-planned" flows. ChurchCore also leverage the OPMW P-Plan extension to Prov-O. details
Example Explorer flow that leverages these concepts.
Explorer searched, selected and watched a Sermon created by a local church lead pastor. Explorer then searched for additional information about the church and read some church blogs. Explorer then submitted a questionnaire response and received a message. The Explorer then selected the message and read it.
This is an example of a Provenance Graph (which is a Knowledge Graph). In this case the Provenance Graph captures the "what happened".
This data might be generated and stored in the Explorers digital wallet and then shared with a trusted mentor fostering discipleship. The key is that all parties are able to understand the semantic meaning behind this graph. Imagine the power of applications being able to understand these types of concepts and relationships. This is the role of the ChurchCore Ontology.
Example Knowledge Graph depicting an example discipleship processes.
Explorer searched, selected and watched a Sermon created by a local church lead pastor. Explorer then searched for additional information about the church and read some church blogs. Explorer then submitted a questionnaire response and received a message. The Explorer then selected the message and read it.
This is an example of a Provenance Graph (which is a Knowledge Graph). In this case the Provenance Graph captures the "what happened". It uses terms (nodes: concepts and arrows: relationships) defined within the Ontology.
This data might be generated and stored in the Explorers digital wallet and then shared with a trusted mentor fostering discipleship. The key is that all parties are able to understand the semantic meaning behind this graph. Imagine the power of applications being able to understand these types of concepts and relationships. This is the role of the ChurchCore Ontology.
Example 2:
Specific church example that represents these concepts and relationships,
Purpose (Why we do what we do? motivations) - Core Beliefs and Values
Let the world know that God so loved the world that he sent Jesus.
Let the world know that God loves them.
The church exists because God loves us and the world
We exist because God loves the world and wants them to know it
Core Beliefs (Church Statement of Faith)
The Word of God. Bible is the Word of God.
The Trinity. Only one living and true God.
The Father
The Son, Jesus Christ
The Holy Spirit
Regeneration
Sinners by nature and choice. Repent and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior are regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
The Church
Local Church, company of believers in Jesus Christ (tribe)
Local Church task of giving the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost world (outreach)
Christian Conduct
The Ordinances
Baptism
Lords Supper
Religious Liberty
Responsible to God alone in all maters of faith
Church is independent and free from an ecclesiastical or poliitcal authority
Church Cooperation
Cooperate with interdenominational fellowships
The Last Things
Believe in the personal and visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth and in the establishment of His kingdom
Core Values
Crazy Generous
Intentionally Improving
Kingdom Minded
Daringly Creative
Bible Driven
Tribe
Vision (What your trying to achieve? the endpoint)
Locally, Regionally, Globally
Reaching everyone on the Front Range with the Gospel
Flourishing church that transforms people’s lives with the gospel
God’s transformation of our hearts
Mission (How we get there?)
We exist to help people become like Jesus and join him on mission
We help people become like Jesus and join him on mission. Unleashing missional followers of Jesus. Live on mission with Jesus in the world.
Evangelism and Discipleship
Goals (What specifically needs to be accomplished and When? means to an end)
Grow in-person church attendance
Grow online church attendance
Increased connections
Prepare for new campus plant
Provide the opportunity for our church family to receive encouraging prayer support
Objectives (Measurable actions defining How to achieve an overall goal)
Action
Outcomes
Salvations
Baptisms
Church Attendance
Another example
Purpose (Why we do what we do? motivations) - Core Beliefs and Values
Release globally, the passion in every person, to champion the growth of another, so they can both be all they were born to be.
Vision (What your trying to achieve? the endpoint)
Release the Collective Might of the Faith Ecosystem
Mission (How we get there?)
Serve the Champion
Help You Scale
Power your Purposes with a great platform
Goals (What specifically needs to be accomplished and When? means to an end)
Objectives (Measurable actions defining How to achieve an overall goal)
Action
Outcomes
Core Ontology
ChurchCore leverages a set of Foundational Ontologies like W3C Prov-O and others. ChurchCore provides a set of concepts and relationships that can be used by others in building out their Church Discipleship solutions.
Discipleship Capabilities
Knowing Jesus
Outbound Outreach
Assessment, Insight
Journey (next steps)
Making Him Known
Invite (invite others)
Agent
Explorer
Organization (Church)
Trusted Mentor
Activities
Explorer searches online
Invitation to connect
Explorer receives message
Trusted Mentor receives "incoming responses"
Tools, Protege
Outcomes - it takes lots of bite-sized steps
Christian discipleship includes
people are searching online
Connect Explorers to trusted mentors
Relationship
Teaching the principles of Scripture
Accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior (inward faith)
Become Like Jesus and Join him on mission
W3C PROV supports the interoperable interchange of provenance in the heterogeneous environments such as the web. It relies on the definition of the elements "Entity", "Activity" and "Agent".
Digital Wallet and Self Sovereign Identity (SSI). Imagine an Explorer responding to a “He Gets Us” initial online interaction and gets an “explorer badge” put in their wallet. That badge, which they accepted, marks the beginning of their journey. That “badge” has common meaning over all organizations and future online interactions. That initial interaction might also place a “journey map” in their wallet that leads them to online resources and Christian mentors.
Why: To break down barriers in ones journey of spiritual growth
How: Provide transformative online discipleship through relational and holistic digital engagement
What: Unify the language employed by digital applications within the Church discipleship eco-system
Objectives:
Govern the creation and management of a church core ontology.
Be a champion for seamless interoperability and composability within the Web3.0 and Church technical eco-system
Be a champion for applications that drive seamless discipleship digital experience
Ontology to GraphQL
https://github.com/LiUSemWeb/OBG-gen
https://github.com/huanyu-li?tab=repositories
Rules stuff
A reasoner is a software component that performs automated reasoning over a knowledge base to infer new
Rule is a Planned Activity. The Rule has a defined Condition and defined Output Effect that is used by downstream Actions.
The Rule Engine Responsible Agent creates and executes a set of Rule Actions, based on Rules. These Rule Action executions result in Effects. These Effects trigger other downstream Actions to be created that result in things like Users being added to groups and messages being sent.
Notice the clear intent difference between defining the Rules and the actual Execution of those Rules. The actual Rules being "Planned Activity" Entities and the Execution having an Operational Intent of Rule Execution (Activity Execution).
As the Rules are firing and Operational Stuff is happening the solution might want to configure Logging and maintain a Trace of "What Happened" which would involve "Executed Activity" semantics.
Existing Religious Ontologies
Existing Religious Ontologies
The New Testament Names (NTN)
https://www.semanticbible.com/
Religious Belief System
Religious Organization
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