LOTED2: An Ontology of European Public Procurement Notices

Tracking #: 678-1888

Authors: 
Isabella Distinto
Mathieu d’Aquin
Enrico Motta

Responsible editor: 
Guest editors Semantic Web 4 Legal Domain

Submission type: 
Full Paper
Abstract: 
This paper describes the construction of the LOTED2 ontology for the representation of European public procurement notices. LOTED2 follows initiatives around the creation of linked data-compliant representations of information regarding tender notices in Europe, but focusing on placing such representations within their legal context. It is therefore considered a legal ontology, as it supports the identification of legal concepts and more generally, legal reasoning. Unlike many other legal ontologies however, LOTED2 is designed to support the creation of Semantic Web applications. The methodology applied for building LOTED2 therefore seeks to find a compromise between the accurate representation of legal concepts and the usability of the ontology as a knowledge model for Semantic Web applications, while creating connections to other relevant ontologies in the domain.
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Review #1
Anonymous submitted on 05/Jun/2014
Suggestion:
Accept
Review Comment:

I am happy with the new revision. All my comments have been addressed.

Review #2
By Rinke Hoekstra submitted on 30/Jun/2014
Suggestion:
Accept
Review Comment:

I thank the authors for their patience, and improvements to the paper. The new figures and explanation improve the paper a lot.

Below a fairly long list of suggestions for improvements, but these are largely minor language issues (word order etc.).

page 1
Thus, for such -> Thus for this

page 1
legal compliance check -> legal compliance checking

page 1
large amount of datasets -> large number of datasets

(dataset is a count noun)

page 1
disperse -> dispersed

page 2
“by this voice of public” -> “on this public”

• Strike Out, page 2
page 2
“large number of stakeholders” is a bit confusing as you only name three.

page 2
“res publica” is both latin and legalese.

page 2
“utilize” is archaic

page 2
“ontological shapers” ?

page 2
web -> Web

page 2
, required by law, condition -> condition, required by law,

page 2
“compromise between an accurate representation of the legal knowledge and Web of Data demanded requirements” -> … requirements demanded by the Web of Data

page 2
“represent legal concepts … Semantic Web applications” .

I see your point, but do not think you state it precise enough. Your concern is the ability to use a legal ontology in the context of “modern” Semantic Web applications, i.e. Linked Data applications. The use of the term “Semantic Web” may be confusing here, as strictly speaking, highly expressive OWL ontologies are SW as well, and there exist applications that can deal with them and use them internally. Perhaps use Linked Data applications, or lightweight Semantic Web applications.

Perhaps refer to section 2.4?

page 2
“their adequacy to be integrated” -> “their ability to be integrated”

page 3
also many information -> also much information

(information is a mass noun)

page 3
linked open data -> Linked Open Dataor

page 3
the Section 5/6/7 -> Section 5/6/7

page 3
“we describe in details the ontology” -> “we describe the ontology in detail”

page 3
as a mean for ensuring a better -> as a mans to ensure better

page 3
web -> Web

• Highlight, page 4
LOD2 is a large-scale Integrated Project co-funded demand” .

page 4
This can be safely removed. The section is about PCO, not LOD2.

Throughout the rest of this subsection, just use the PCO abbreviation after once introducing it.

page 4
SubClass -> subclass
Call for Anything -> “Call for Anything”

(readability)

• Highlight, page 5
page 5
simply declaring -> simply by declaring
- offer -> (offer)

page 5
Public Contracts Ontology -> PCO

page 5
PA2B and B2B -> why introduce these abbreviations if you’re not going to use them later?

page 5
“seems to tackle” -> tackles

• Highlight, page 5
‘10ders Information Services’ is a Project co- sultancy Services and is developed in collaboration with ExisTI (both commercial companies) and the Web Semantica Oviedo (WESO) Research Group . roalert.net [35], a brand owned by Gateway SCS. Ba-

page 5
Introduction of 2.3 is much too long (again). It’s safe to remove almost everything from the first two paragraphs!

page 5
“decreasing of informations’s dispersion” -> “decrease of information dispersion”

page 5
WESO future work: could LOTED2 play a role here?

page 6
“integration with other ontological resources in the open, heterogeneous…” -> this is because that open, heterogeneous semantic web did not really exist during the conception of the ontologies.

page 6
Section 2.4 title: all headings should be title case: “On Legal Ontologies and Linked Data Models”

page 6
“public procurement’s ontological modelling” - > Rephrase: the public procurements are not doing the ontological modeling.

page 6
Why is that not surprising? Several ontologies were made by people also active in the SW community (Aldo, myself).

page 6
“the public procurement” -> “public procurement”

page 6
“various reasons why powerful representation languages” -> how many? Since you enumerate them…

page 6
“the second group of legal ontologies” -> You introduce them here, but do not really refer back to them from the following text. Is it needed to describe them?

page 7
“could be indirectly considered a sort of ‘experiment’” -> “can indirectly be considered as an ‘experiment’…”

page 7
“On the other side …. governing the matter” -> rephrase this sentence; it is too long.

page 7
“it represents the mean by which” -> “it represents the means by which”

page 7
“hybridization” is a strange word. Do not recommend using it.

page 8
“for improving the meeting of demand and offer in public procurement” -> please rephrase, e.g. “that support public procurement by matching supply and demand”

page 8
“Mainly two Directives” -> “Two main directives…”

page 8
“Hence, these…” -> “These..”

page 9
“Fig. 2” -> “Figure 2”
(Where do you refer to this figure?)

page 9
“constitutive part” -> “parts” (parts always constitute!”

page 9
As I said before, combining topdown and bottom up is not new, as can be seen from the ontology engineering methodologies of uschold & gruninger, gruninger & fo,

uschold & king etc. from the mid-nineties. It is called “middle-out approach”, based on work by Elaine Rich, on the ‘basic level’.

page 9
“various approach and methodologies” -> “various approaches and methodologies”

page 9
“on the contrary, ontologies” -> “contrastingly, ontologies”

page 9
“Firstly, the raw data structure…” It would make sense to turn this section into bullets.

page 10
Loted2-core -> LOTED2-core (for consistency!)

page 10
Both LOTED2-core ontology -> Both the LOTED2-core ontology

page 11
“Fig 3.” -> “Figure 3”

page 11
“rather than a type of entities” -> “rather than a type of entity” OR “rather than types of entities” depending on what you mean.

page 11
for an example -> for example

page 11
“on one hand” -> “on the one hand”

page 11
“numerus clausulus” -> again, use of latin/legalese … please refrain from using it unless you explain the term.

page 11
“considered per se a contracting authority or entity” -> “considered a contracting authority or entity per se”

page 11
“For each type of these activities … through an annotation property (Loted2:tedLabel).”

-> not grammatically correct.

page 11
“such as specification or descriptive documents” -> “such as specifications or descriptions”

page 11
“Indeed, these” -> “These”

page 12
“observers in Government Procurement” -> “observers in the Government Procurement”

page 12
“In this module are described” -> “This module describes”

page 12
“which is based the entity” -> “which the entity is based”

page 12
“sources regulating public” -> “sources that regulate the public”

page 13
Fig 5: this figure will be very hard to read. Consider increasing its size, and at the very least its resolution.

page 13
“procurements competitive processes” -> “the competitive processes of procurements, and in organizations”

page 13
“highlighted describing the” - “highlighted in the description of the”

page 13
“Entity denotes roles” - >“Entity denote roles”

page 14
“represent public contract per se” -> “represent public contracts per se”

page 14
Fig 6 will be hard to read in print

page 14
“means whereby is announced a competitive bidding” -> “means whereby a competitive bidding is announced”

page 14
“in the ontology is specified” -> “the ontology specifies”

page 14
“invitation to make offer” -> “invitation to make an offer”

page 15
“to whom is addressed the invitation” ->”to whom the invitation is addressed”

page 15
“a sort of upper module” -> “an upper module”

page 17
“amended Good Relations ontology” -> “amended the Good Relations ontology”

page 17
“Therefore, is not “ -> “Therefore, it is not”

page 17
“treatment on which is inspired the Art…” -> “treatment on which Art…. is inspired”

page 17
“about how should be understood an integration” -> “about how an integration should be understood”

page 19
Use a fixed width font for DL formulas. Also you’ve been using manchester syntax in a screenshot… choose one or the other, but do not use both.

page 20
“shown in the fig 1” -> “shown in figure 1”

page 21
you use property names with underscores, while in earlier examples you use CamelCase???

page 21
“Fig 10” should be figure 9, as there is no figure 9 in you rpaper.

page 22
Paragraphs in section 7 should be proper subsections or at least more visible in the layout, as they give a lot of structure.

page 22
Please refrain from using “Nowadays”

page 22
“To that extent” -> “To that end”

page 23
Fig 12: you have nice steps, with numbers etc. why not explain the picture in a bit more dtail?

page 23
“may participate into EU tenders” -> participate in

page 23
“it can be generated a sort of semantic noise” -> “a sort of semantic noise can be generated”

page 25
“The value of ‘little semantics’…” .. make this a proper paragraph heading or subsection.

page 25
“on one hand” -> “on the one hand”

page 25
variety of related works -> variety of related work