Combining and relating ontologies: an analysis of problems and solutions

TLDR

The growing availability of large, specialized online ontologies has heightened questions about combining independently developed ontologies, and despite existing research, many open questions remain. The paper aims to classify ontology combination problems into a common framework and to provide an overview of approaches with recommendations for future research. They use the framework to analyze several ontology combination projects, thereby outlining the state of the art.

Abstract

With the grown availability of large and specialized online ontologies, the questions about the combined use of independently developed ontologies have become even more important. Although there is already a lot of research done in this area, there are still many open questions. In this paper we try to classify the problems that may arise into a common framework. We then use that framework to examine several projects that aim at some ontology combination task, thus sketching the state of the art. We conclude with an overview of the different approaches and some recommandations for future research.