Can Knowledge about Community Resilience be Organized by Means

of Ontological Modeling?

Sarah Newell Wojtek

MichalowskiDavood Astaraky

Telfer School of Management

Tracey O’Sullivan Interdisciplinary School

of Health Sciences

University of Ottawa

Outline

BackgroundResearch HypothesisMethodOntology Study MethodVisualizing the OntologyExpected ResultsConclusions/Implications

Background

Community Resilience: the ability to resist, absorb, and recover from a disturbance.1

Many different research approaches have led to a lack of agreement about which are the key elements to focus on when developing interventions.

1 – Norris et al, 2008

Research Hypothesis

Systematic representation of the knowledge about community resilience to a disaster will highlight the interdependence of components so their roles can be better understood.

Method

The ontology engineering will: Provide structure Organize the elements Tailor to unique community needs

Ontology

Structured way of representing knowledge Concepts and the relationships between

themStudy design process

Define Knowledge

Sources

Extract Concepts

Develop Ontology Evaluate Case Study

Knowledge Extraction Method

Modified from PICO method1 used by Cochrane Review2

Adapted for our purposes to include

Concepts, Abstraction Level, Properties (CAP Method)

1 - Higgins & Green, 2011 ; 2 - Cochrane Collaboration, 2013

Knowledge Extraction

Review each paragraph individually

Describing content of literature

Community Resilience to a Disaster

Case study or too specific

Describing relationship between concepts

Developing the Ontology of Community Resilience

Identify key concepts/elementsDefine each term or conceptIdentify shared characteristics to form

hierarchyIdentify appropriate superconcepts

and subconcepts based on these characteristics

Develop relationships between hierarchies

Ontology Visualized

Social Capital

Social Support Social Networks

Community Engagment

Collective Consciousness

Community Competence

Collective Efficacy

Community Capacity

Community Ownership

Community Action

ResourcesCommunityEnvironment Type

Disaster

Has Environment

Ecological Environment

Social Environment

Built Environment

Is-a Has Resources

Is-a

Has Community

EffectsIs Effected by

Natural Disaster

Human Disaster

Technological Disaster Hurricane

Is-a

Is-a

Is-a Is-a

Conclusions/Implications

This ontology is a way of representing the current knowledge.

Future research can benefit from identifying gaps that exist in the ontology.

Design of interventions can benefit from having knowledge represented in a systematic manner.

Can Knowledge about Community Resilience be Organized by Means of Ontological Modeling?

Contact Information:Sarah Newell

University of Ottawasnewe094@uottawa.com

www.telfer.uOttawa.ca

THANK YOU