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The Evaluation of Ontologies

Published

Author(s)

Leo Obrst, Benjamin Ashpole, Werner Ceusters, Mahesh Mani, Steven R. Ray, Bradford Smith

Abstract

Recent years have seen rapid progress in the development of ontologies as semantic models intended to capture and represent aspects of the real world. There is, however, great variation in the quality of ontologies. If ontologies are to become progressively better in the future, more rigorously developed, and more appropriately compared, then a systematic discipline of ontology evaluation must be created to ensure quality of content and methodology. Systematic methods for ontology evaluation will take into account representation of individual ontologies, performance and accuracy on tasks for which the ontology is designed and used, degree of alignment with other ontologies and their compatibility with automated reasoning. A sound and systematic approach to ontology evaluation is required to transform ontology engineering into a true scientific and engineering discipline. This chapter discusses issues and problems in ontology evaluation, describes some current strategies, and suggests some approaches that might be useful in the future.
Citation
Semantic Web: Revolutionizing Knowledge Discovery in the Life Sciences
Publisher Info
Springer, New York, NY

Keywords

alignment, certification, evaluation, ontology, similarity, validation

Citation

Obrst, L. , Ashpole, B. , Ceusters, W. , Mani, M. , Ray, S. and Smith, B. (2006), The Evaluation of Ontologies, Springer, New York, NY, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=822618 (Accessed March 18, 2024)
Created July 31, 2006, Updated October 12, 2021