Reusable Tools for Knowledge Base and Ontology Development

Abstract

Abstract : In the construction of a new knowledge base (KB), significant productivity gains can be obtained by reusing existing knowledge components. These components include pieces of domain knowledge and KB development tools. To support reuse of domain knowledge, the knowledge sharing community has undertaken various efforts, including the development of shared portable anthologies and the development of well-defined languages for knowledge interchange. There has been, however, less emphasis on the reuse of KB development tools. A significant amount of effort is invested in building customized tools for specific knowledge representation systems (KRSs). These tools work only with a single KRS, and the development effort is wasted if the KRS is no longer used. A KRS developer usually does not have the choice of using off-the-shelf tools and is forced to develop custom tools. Open knowledge base connectivity (OKBC) is an application programming interface (API) for KPRSs that has been developed to address the problem of KB tools reusability. The name OKBC was chosen to be analogous to ODBC (Open Database Connectivity), as used in the database community. This work experimented with several KB development tools to test the ability of OKBC to enable the construction of reusable tools. These tools included GKB-editor, a graphical tool for browsing and editing KBs, and PERK, a system for storing KBs in Oracle and for controlling multiuser access to KBs.