A methodology for asynchronous multi-user editing of semantic web ontologies

Abstract

Current tools, techniques and methodologies for multiuser editing of semantic web ontologies are inadequate. The vast majority of ontologies are maintained by single individuals. However, single user access is increasingly becoming a bottleneck as these ontologies grow in size. We therefore suggest a technique and for locking segments of description logic ontologies for multi-user editing. This technique fits into a methodology for ontology editing in which multiple ontology engineers concurrently lock, extract, modify, error-check and re-merge individual segments of a large ontology. The technique aims to provide a pragmatic compromise between a very restrictive approach that might offer complete error protection but make useful multi-user interactions impossible and a wide-open anything-goes editing paradigm which offers little to no protection. Copyright 2007 ACM.