L11. Relations and Structure
A relationship is “an association among several things, with that association having a
particular significance” The reason is an important part of the relationship. Just identifying the pair of things
involved is not enough; several different relationships can exist among the
same objects, and the order of the objects in the relationship usually matters.
We care about relationships for two main reasons: 1) everything is related to something, and
2) relationships are powerful means of navigating and finding resources.
An ontology defines the concepts and terms used to describe and
represent an area of knowledge and the relationships among them. A
dictionary can be considered a simplistic ontology, and a thesaurus a
slightly more rigorous one, but we usually reserve "ontology" for
meaning expressed using more formal or structured language. Put another
way, an ontology relies on a controlled vocabulary for describing the
relationships among concepts and terms.