Common knowledge based access to disparate semantic spaces: the ontology switching approach

  • Authors:
  • Thomas Mandl;Christa Womser-Hacker

  • Affiliations:
  • Information Science, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany;Information Science, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany

  • Venue:
  • PAKM'06 Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

We present the ontology switching system MyShelf which is implemented using technological standards of the semantic web. MyShelf solves the problem of semantic heterogeneity by integrating different cognitive views on one data collection. Homogenization has been the most widely applied approach to create common semantic spaces in order to overcome the limitations to sharing knowledge posed by semantically heterogeneous concept structures. Ontology switching implemented in MyShelf manages diverse ontologies by integrating them and enables the user to access them in parallel. Most important, the user can change his point of view by switching to another concept structure at any point and explore different viewpoints according to his current context. An ontology switching system dynamically reorganizes the concept structure and populates it with knowledge objects. The paper describes the design options for ontology switching systems, presents prototypes, evaluation results and points to future developments. This work integrates semantic web ideas and human computer interaction.