Semantic authoring of ontologies by exploration and elimination of possible worlds

Abstract

We propose a novel approach to ontology authoring that is centered on semantics rather than on syntax. Instead of writing axioms formalizing a domain, the expert is invited to explore the possible worlds of her ontology, and to eliminate those that do not conform to her knowledge. Each elimination generates an axiom that is automatically derived from the explored situation. We have implemented the approach in prototype PEW (Possible World Explorer), and conducted a user study comparing it to Protégé. The results show that more axioms are produced with PEW, without making more errors. More importantly, the produced ontologies are more complete, and hence more deductively powerful, because more negative constraints are expressed.