QUDT Ontologies Goals

The goals of the QUDT ontologies are to provide:

1. A standardized consistent vocabulary, focused on terminology used in science and engineering.
   1. The vocabulary in this standard consists of standardized terminology, definitions, identifiers, and information models.
   2. The intent is to use this vocabulary with a variety of encodings, formats, and data definitions, so it is defined independent of those forms.
   3. Some or all portions of this vocabulary will be of interest to various users and applications, depending on the use case and policy mandates.
   4. It is expected that a large set of existing corpus will not be changed, and so this standard serves as a critical 'Rosetta Stone' to reference existing uses of quantities, units, dimensions, and types to a consistent base.
2. A set of consistent coded identifiers, for human and machine use.
   1. In the same way that modern digital computers could not represent and process meaningful information without the use of standards such as ASCII and Unicode, this standard also introduces a similar coding scheme, for a like purpose.
   2. Assigning an explicit designator (e.g. ASCII uses a numerical value for each letter of the alphabet, numbers, and punctuation) to quantities, units, dimensions, and types is used to provide a robust, unequivocal method of identification of digital information by computer software and hardware.
   3. This definitional approach provides generalized usability for both humans and machines, avoiding problems with uncertainty and misinterpretation.
3. A collection of foundational vocabularies that can serve a variety of applications. Some examples include:
   1. providing terminology and vocabulary definitions for Documents and Publications. Define consistent terminology for general Program and Project documentation, technical reports, conference papers, guides, drawings, technical specifications, engineering and process documentation, etc.
   2. defining software code documentation, pragmas and/or comments, and independent reference documentation. Referencing system and software variables and constants provides explicit, unambiguous definitions that can be used for data exchanges, semantic consistency, automated checking, software reuse, and more robust search and discovery.
   3. improving the quality of software interfaces, web services, and data exchanges. The model basis of this standard can be used by other software, or to build software, for a variety of purposes; model creation, validation, compilation and run-time checking, translation and transformation, data exchange definitions, etc.
   4. generating schema specifications and data definitions in other formalisms. Examples include database, data file (ex, XML) schema, software application data structures, code-lists, and other controlled vocabularies.
   5. enabling files, datasets, messages, communications and Data Exchange Packages to use consistent terms and constructs when defining elements of datasets and messages in a variety of forms and formats.
4. A framework designed for extensibility and evolution, but model-based (instead of just a typical dictionary) and governed.
   1. The authors recognize that any given release will not have every possible quantity, unit, dimension, or type that a user may need.
   2. The framework has been designed to grow in a consistent manner.