Working Group and TC 440 joint meeting 29/09/2020

Participants: Working group members of eProcurement Ontology and TC 440

TTC440 explains it was in the early process of establishing an eProcurement terminology to be used by each specification that needed a term. TC440 recognizes the eProcurement ontology and therefore their deliverables intend to align with the eProcurement Ontology. This meeting aimst to set an organization that ensures this alignment. The proposed idea is to reuse the definitions developed by the eProcurement Ontology instead of creating a competing activity to establish a competing terminology.

The OP presents the eProcurement ontology. OP explains that the eProcurement ontology aims to cover the whole life cycle of the procurement from eNotification to eInvocing. Currently, the eProcurement ontology development is limited to the eNotification but this phase provides the backbone of information from the rest of the procurement phases. Presentlly the eProcurement ontology defines the terms and definitions of the data that is needed in the eNotification phase. A human-readable representation (a conceptual model) of the ontology depicting its concepts and how they interrelate has been created and it is publicly available for consultation. Recently the team created the OWL and SHACL files that provide a machine-readable representation of the conceptual data model.

OP explains that the work produced for the ontology has been checked through the mapping to eForms, ensuring that the eForm business terms are mappable in the eProcurement Ontology. There is another project that is the mapping to the current TED forms. This work is not complete but should be finished by the end of this year.

The ontology is built on the eProcurement directives so its focus is European and B2G, even though B2B has been taken into account in the fact that the Buyer can be a business. The ontology uses ccts components. OP indicates that all the related information and files of the ontology are publicly available on GitHub.

The OP presents the roadmap. It started with producing the Glossary. The eNotification phase is planned to be finished by the end of 2020. Then the plan is to start the eAccess phase. OP indicates that the roadmap is presented in the following order but it can be changed according to different needs.

OP explains how to access the different files related to the eProcurement Ontology. OP also presents the HTML version of the conceptual model and the different diagrams that represent the ontology, and how the classes, code lists, and attributes of a class are represented in the model. OP shows an example of how the definition of a class and attribute is defined in the model.

TC440 asks OP that if the Ontology is based on the directives it means that the Ontology is focused on public procurement. OP indicates that the Ontology is focused on public procurement, but it can be extended in a larger scope.

Cécile Guasch explains the reasons for using the eProcurement Ontology and the rationale of the eProcurement Ontology: 1. Reuse terms and models defined by the eProcurement Ontology (ensure that legislation is consistently taken into consideration, the work done by the eProcurement Ontology working group is highly resource intensive); 2. Adopt the same methodology (the activity started from a conceptual model which has been improved and updated with the working group); 3. Feed the eProcurement Ontology (change request, new concept).

The proposal is that the WG from the different projects can take the current version of the model, the v2.0.2, which is being evolved and request to the eProcurement Ontology WG the extension or creation of definitions for some concepts. The approach consists in the steps listed below:

  • Identify the information elements of CWA transaction specification that can be found in the eProcurement ontology.

  • Check for coherence of meaning of the common subset

  • Identify gap and for the gap solve following 3 items:

    1. Propose change requests to the eProcurement ontology: To update existing elements of the ontology To create new elements (concepts, property or attribute)

    2. Propose specialization or extension of the eProcurement ontology

    3. Meet with the eProcurement ontology to discuss the proposal to solve the gap and the Change requests

  • Refer to the eProcurement ontology elements in the specifications also copying the definition of the term.