Ontology mapping: the state of the art

TLDR

Ontology mapping is increasingly viewed as a solution to the growing need for interoperable ontologies on the Web, as multiple publicly available ontologies must be accessed and integrated by distributed applications. This article seeks to comprehensively review ontology mapping research and offer insights into its practical and theoretical dimensions. The authors survey existing mapping methods, examine pragmatic aspects, and propose a theoretical framework for defining ontology mapping.

Abstract

Ontology mapping is seen as a solution provider in today's landscape of ontology research. As the number of ontologies that are made publicly available and accessible on the Web increases steadily, so does the need for applications to use them. A single ontology is no longer enough to support the tasks envisaged by a distributed environment like the Semantic Web. Multiple ontologies need to be accessed from several applications. Mapping could provide a common layer from which several ontologies could be accessed and hence could exchange information in semantically sound manners. Developing such mappings has been the focus of a variety of works originating from diverse communities over a number of years. In this article we comprehensively review and present these works. We also provide insights on the pragmatics of ontology mapping and elaborate on a theoretical approach for defining ontology mapping.