Scalability and knowledge reusability in ontology modeling

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is to present and discuss the scalability and reusability capabilities of DOGMA, an ontology modeling approach. Ontologies are repositories of domain knowledge and essential for knowledge management in organizations and for achieving interoperation among information systems. In the DOGMA ontology server architecture we implement ontologies as classical database resources separating the "fact base" from the constraints, rules, derivations etc. that commit an application to such a given ontology "base". This separation allows an increased degree of scalability and reusability for the activities of ontology building. These issues are key in the context of the so-called Semantic Web where very large numbers of partial ontologies will emerge.