Ontology Modeling

Abstract

Knowledge modeling is an important task that constitutes the process of building knowledge-intensive systems. Ontology modeling allows for the use of appropriate formalisms for representing relevant domain knowledge using ontological structures to promote machine interoperability and communication. Heterogeneous knowledge and legacy systems benefit from interoperability derivable from ontology models. However, this interoperability can be limited by the choice of ontology formalism used for modeling. In addition, this could also impact the inference-making process of the resulting ontology. It is therefore important to understand the wide range of ontology modeling languages available, and their pros and cons. Ontology engineering methodology applied to the process of ontology modeling is another important concept needed for accurately representing domain knowledge. There are various tools and paradigms employed by knowledge engineers to modeling domain knowledge. This chapter presents a systematic overview of semantic web languages and formalism for ontology representation. We also examine different paradigms applied to the engineering process of ontology modeling and provide a comparative analysis of these approaches which supports a comprehensive and accurate domain knowledge representation. In addition, a review of available ontology modeling tools and editors is considered with emphasis on Protégé editor. We emphasize the need for an appropriate selection of ontology formalism, engineering methodology, and the use of editing tools during the engineering process of domain ontology to leverage the semantic web and its ecosystem of languages, tools, reasoners, and inference making capability.