Ontology Tutorial Series

Resources Useful to the Understanding of Ontologies and the Semantic Web

Over the past few weeks we have been publishing a series of general background documents and tutorials useful to the understanding of ontologies. These entries have been prepared specifically with the non-expert and end user in mind.

The Ontology Tutorial Series is now complete as initially scoped. These various articles, in both originally posted form and as kept current on the OpenStructs‘ TechWiki [1], are:

• An Executive Intro to Ontologies [TechWiki] — an executive-level introduction to ontologies, their uses and their benefits
• A Brief Survey of Ontology Development Methodologies [TechWiki] — a survey of existing methods and approaches for how ontologies get built
• Listing of 185 Ontology Building Tools [TechWiki] — a comprehensive listing and categorization of tools for building, editing, maintaining and using ontologies; most of the tools are open source
• A New Methodology for Building Lightweight, Domain Ontologies [TechWiki] — a recommended approach and methodology for how existing practice and methods can be pragmatically combined to build and maintain ontologies
• A New Landscape in Ontology Development Tools [TechWiki] — a recommended approach and development path for the evolution of ontology tools suitable for use by knowledge workers and domain (non-ontology) experts
• Metamodeling in Domain Ontologies [TechWiki] — an important structural consideration for how to build flexible and adaptive ontologies, and
• A Reference Guide to Ontology Best Practices [TechWiki] — the capstone piece in the tutorial series that summarizes best ontology practices across all areas of use and maintenance.