Ontology

Management
Survey, Requirement and Direction

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 1

Outline
 Ontology library system
● Evaluation models
● Summary and requirement
 Ontology versioning
● Requirement
● Proposal
 Summary and conclusions

Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 2

Ontology Library System
(OLS)
Evaluation Model

O1 O2 O3 On

Management Adaptation
Standardization
- Storage - Searching
- Language
- Identification - Editing - Upper-level ontology
- Versioning - Reasoning

Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 3

Management
 Storage
● Accessibility:
• client/server-based architecture
• web accessible
● Classification
• It is necessary to classify ontology in an OLS in
order to facilitate searching, managing and
re-using ontology. Some of the ontology
classification mechanisms available are based
on distinguishable features of ontologies.

Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 4

Management
 Storage
● Modular organization
• serve to maximize cohesion within modules and minimize
interaction between modules.
• facilitate ontology re-use, ontology mapping and integration
• ONIONS highlights the stratified design of an ontology library
system.
• Different naming policies assist OLS to achieve the modular
organization or stratified storage of ontologies.
• The disjointed partitioning of classes can facilitate
modularity, assembling, integrating and consisting checking
of ontologies.
 Identification
● Unique ontology URL, Identifier and name
 Versioning
● Unfortunately, only
Aug 14+15 SHOE
OTK 2nd Reviewit.
supports 5
Adaptation
 Searching & Editing
● feature a visualized browsing environment,
using hyperlinks or cross-references to closely
related information.
● support collaborative editing
● offer advanced searching features
● monitor user profiles based on access patterns
in order to personalize the view of ontologies
 Reasoning
● A simple reasoning function should be included
in order to facilitate ontology creation, ontology
mapping and integration.

Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 6

Standardization
 Language
● Syntactically, language should be standardized or inter- or
intra- ontology language translation should be supported.
●
Semantically, OLS should feature the common vocabulary
(or faceted taxonomy). At any rate, it should eliminate the
implicitness and misunderstanding of terms in different
ontologies.
● Preferably, OLS should also support compatibility with or
mapping between multiple controlled vocabularies from
different domains (The structures of these common vocabularies
or multiple controlled vocabularies must be faceted, or modulated.
These vocabularies can help in simple synonym matching, sibling
analysis, and disjoint partition checking).
 Upper-level Ontology
● Standard upper-level ontology is important for better
organization of OLS (Ontolingua, IEEE SUO).
Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 7
Others
 Ontology scalability
● increase the scale of ontologies.
 Maintaining facility
● provide some maintenance features, such as consistency
checking, diagnostic testing, support for changes, and
adaptation of ontologies for different applications.
 Explicit documentation
● extensively and explicitly documented
● include such information as how the ontology was
constructed, how to make extensions and what the
ontology’s naming policy, organizational principles and
functions are.
● pave the way for efficient ontology management and re-
use.
Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 8
Ontology versioning
 Definition: the ability to handle changes in
ontologies by creating and managing different
variants of it
 Goal:exploit as much knowledge as possible
● Identification: for every use of a concept or a

relation, a versioning framework should provide

an unambigious reference to the intended
definition
● Change tracking: a versioning framework

should make the relation of one version of a

concept or relation to other versions of that
construct explicit
● Transparent evolution versioning

methodology on the
Aug 14+15 web
OTK 2nd Reviewshould make clear 9
Ideas on ontology
identification
 Putting it together
● different causes of change give different
types of change
● several types of compatibility
● minimal ontological commitment for data
sources maximizes validness of data
across different versions

Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 10

Identification and referring
proposal
 Distinguish between three classes of resources:
● files, ontologies, lines of backward compatible ontologies
 Use URL for file identification, new URI scheme for
other two
 Two level numbering
● minor numbers for backward compatible changes
● major numbers for incompatible changes
 Concepts that only differ in minor number are
equivalent
 Backward compatible additions are added as
instance of class “Addition” class, e.g. Additions1.3
 Data refers to the minimal necessary minor number

Aug 14+15 OTK 2nd Review 11

Summary
 Well-structured Ontology Library
systems (OLSs) are of the great
importance to secure the efficient re-
use of ontologies, including ontology
generation, integration, mapping,
maintenance, and versioning
(evolving).
 Robustness for change is essential for
the Semantic Web
 Ontology identification and referring is
one
Aug 14+15 of the most OTK
important
2nd Review aspects of 12