Using graphically represented ontologies for searching content on the semantic web

Abstract

As presented in this chapter, the main building blocks of the GODE are already available, though, at the time of writing, not integrated. By implementing the GODE as a plug-in for existing technology such as CORPORUM® Knowledge Server or CORPORUM® Intelligent Components, users can already get accustomed to the new way of searching to get ready for the next step: the Semantic Web. When the Semantic Web becomes more mature, plug-ins for conversion of visual queries to the various Semantic Web query languages will be made in order to make the Semantic Web as available for the general audience as the Web is today. The Graphical Ontology Designer Environment is meant to give today's search engine users the possibility to draw on the full use of the Semantic Web, without having to learn complex query languages. By gently introducing the presented search concept by means of a guided search, where one can type a natural language text of which a graphical ontology is created, the naive users get the opportunity to explore the Semantic Web with a low threshold. In a later phase (medium-level) users can construct their own graphical ontologies from scratch and run it through an ontology-checking algorithm to make sure the ontology is of good quality and does not contain any contradictions or impossible situations. Once the users have reached the expert level, they can benefit from the advanced options of the GODE and define relation types between the search concepts to retrieve even more accurate results. © 2006 Springer-Verlag London Limited.