Beyond ontology construction; ontology services as online knowledge sharing communities

Abstract

There are a number of different ontology server implementations available, Their functionality focuses on editing, browsing and storing ontologies. In some cases the ontology server also provides an inference engine that allows statements about the relationships between entities in different ontologies to be tested or retrieved. These functions are certainly required for a practical deployment of an ontology service in an organization but when an ontology service is to be deployed in an open environment, such as the Semantic Web, a number of other considerations become apparent. This paper describes ACOS (Agent Cities Ontology Service), during the development of ACOS we have explored some aspects of creating a collaborative, community-oriented ontology server, in an open environment. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.