Choosing ontologies for reuse

Abstract

The task of designing an ontology through reuse is difficult, and a major challenge in this effort is choosing between different ontologies that are candidates for reuse. To address this challenge, we introduce a notion of preference between ontologies and provide a definition that allows the developer to make a well-founded comparison across a set of ontologies, with respect to their semantic requirements. The preference between ontologies is based on an assessment of relative accuracy and precision, which are also defined here. These concepts formalize the underlying intuitions related to the different possible outcomes in the assessment of an ontology against a developer’s semantic requirements. We also present a procedure to demonstrate the viability of the definition of preference, resulting in a novel approach to the choice between ontologies for reuse; it is sufficiently well-defined such that it could provide the basis for tool support to assist in this task. By providing ontology developers with a means of effectively comparing different ontologies for reuse, this work addresses several of the key limitations for ontology reuse, as identified by the 2014 Ontology Summit Communiqué (Obrst et al., 2014, pp. 155–170).