Collaboration support for the distributed development of ontologies

Viac o knihe

The development of ontologies as a formal structural framework is crucial for various applications. Given that ontology development often involves collaboration over extended periods, it is essential to provide a supportive environment that fosters flexible collaboration and aids in creating robust, accurate ontologies. This dissertation focuses on creating an easy-to-use collaborative ontology development environment that accommodates both synchronous and asynchronous activities. Two prototype systems were developed based on extensive requirements analysis. The first prototype facilitates synchronized cooperation through a Java-based application, offering functions like group-awareness and a locking mechanism, allowing developers to be aware of each other's actions and avoid conflicts when editing the same ontology resources. Insights gained from this prototype led to the exploration of asynchronous cooperation needs. A version control system, particularly for managing ontology data structures, became a key component. The second prototype supports local workspaces that sync with a central server-based ontology store, enabling version control at the individual resource level. Developers can work in their own spaces while achieving a shared ontology through committing, updating, and merging. Each version of an ontology resource is preserved as a snapshot, allowing the evolution of individual resources or the entire ontology to