Abstract:

Ontology engineering, evolution, and maintenance are collaborative processes. The crucial task is how to accommodate the new changes in the ontology while preserving its consistency. We provide here a framework for ontology evolution. As new concept(s) emerge, the proposed framework automates the process of how these new changes will be detected and then committed to the ontology. The change in focus can be a single concept, group of concepts, and/or concepts in a hierarchical structure. A log of all the implemented changes is maintained using Change Log Ontology for Evolution Management (CLONE) to eliminate conflicts and to support the Undo and redo operations.