Ontology of Evidence

Intelligence analysts rely on reports that are subject to many varieties of uncertainty, such as noise in sensors; deception or error by human sources; or cultural misunderstanding. To be effective, intelligence analysts must understand the relationship between reports, the events or situations reported upon, and the hypotheses of interest to which those events or situations are evidential. Computerized support for intelligence analysts must provide assistance for managing evidential reasoning. For this purpose, computational representations are needed for categories and relationships related to evidential reasoning, such as hypotheses, evidence, arguments, sources, and credibility. This paper describes some of the entities and relationships that belong in an ontology of evidence, and makes the case for the fundamental importance of a carefully engineered ontology of evidence to the enterprise of intelligence analysis.