Ontology Design Patterns

Created on March 13, 2013, 9:36 a.m. by Hevok & updated by Hevok on May 2, 2013, 4:47 p.m.

Ontology Design Pattern (ODP) comes from a Principle that is already available in Software Engineering but originally stems from Architecture. There one always has recurrence modeling Problems. For example, one has to build a roof, although not all Roofs are quite the same, they are similar in some sense. Therefore it is quite clever to provide a set of adaptable Standard Solutions that one can use. This are the Design Patterns for Architecture for example. This is also available for Software Engineering as well as Ontology Engineering. So one has Ontology Design Patterns, that provide small and reusable Ontology Templates with an explicit Documentation. The advantage is that one has a searchable Repository which is ordered by the Types of Competence Questions and the Content of the Competence Questions that one might ask [Gangemi et al., 2005; http://onotlogydesignpatterns.org].

In general when one wants to model something and one has for instance a Sentence in Natural Language, one tries to find the right Ontology Pattern to design these Ontologies. For this one has to Analyze the Sentence and take the modeling Issue and match it to the Ontology Design Pattern one has. On tries to find the Statement somewhere in the Problem Space where all the Competence Questions are stored. Then when one has found it one tries to find a connection to Ontology Design Patterns. For example on finds something in the Ontology Design Patterns that represent Objects and the role the Play, then one can use it to construct a bigger and larger Ontology as part of it. So one always uses Pattern that already proof to be well suited for the Application. This makes the use of small and less complex Patterns, already Designed Patterns of Ontology, and therefore the Ontology Development Process rather efficient.

ODP_Logo_LEGO_Bricks.svg

Tags: method, patterns, modeling, approach, process
Categories: Concept
Parent: Ontology Development

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