Ontology editor
Encyclopedia
Ontology editors are applications designed to assist in the creation or manipulation of ontologies
.
They often express ontologies in one of many ontology languages
. Some provide export to other ontology languages however.
used for persistence
and the visual navigation possibilities within the knowledge model. Next come built-in inference engine
s and information extraction
facilities, and the support of upper ontologies
such as OWL-S
, Dublin Core
, etc. Another important feature is the ability to import & export foreign knowledge representation
languages for ontology matching.
Ontologies are developed for a specific purpose and application. Ensure the tool has the right interface for the information science team developing it - which could be highly technical for a help desk/decision tree system and could be a non-technical librarian or business analyst for a knowledge map over an intranet. Also make sure that the end product can be used - i.e. that the tool has an API or appropriate export capability to plug the ontology into the desired application(s).
Ontology (computer science)
In computer science and information science, an ontology formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain, and the relationships between those concepts. It can be used to reason about the entities within that domain and may be used to describe the domain.In theory, an ontology is...
.
They often express ontologies in one of many ontology languages
Ontology language (computer science)
In computer science and artificial intelligence, ontology languages are formal languages used to construct ontologies. They allow the encoding of knowledge about specific domains and often include reasoning rules that support the processing of that knowledge...
. Some provide export to other ontology languages however.
Decision criteria for software choice
Among the most relevant criteria for choosing an ontology editor are the degree to which the editor abstracts from the actual ontology representation languageOntology language (computer science)
In computer science and artificial intelligence, ontology languages are formal languages used to construct ontologies. They allow the encoding of knowledge about specific domains and often include reasoning rules that support the processing of that knowledge...
used for persistence
Persistence
Persistence may refer to:* Image persistence, in LCD monitors* Multidrug tolerance, a dormant, persistent state of a bacterial population* Persistence , the characteristic of data that outlives the execution of the program that created it...
and the visual navigation possibilities within the knowledge model. Next come built-in inference engine
Inference engine
In computer science, and specifically the branches of knowledge engineering and artificial intelligence, an inference engine is a computer program that tries to derive answers from a knowledge base. It is the "brain" that expert systems use to reason about the information in the knowledge base for...
s and information extraction
Information extraction
Information extraction is a type of information retrieval whose goal is to automatically extract structured information from unstructured and/or semi-structured machine-readable documents. In most of the cases this activity concerns processing human language texts by means of natural language...
facilities, and the support of upper ontologies
Upper ontology (computer science)
In information science, an upper ontology is an ontology which describes very general concepts that are the same across all knowledge domains. The most important function of an upper ontology is to support very broad semantic interoperability between a large number of ontologies accessible...
such as OWL-S
OWL-S
OWL-S is an ontology built on top of Web Ontology Language by the DARPA DAML program. It replaces the former DAML-S ontology. "OWL-S is an ontology, within the OWL-based framework of the Semantic Web, for describing Semantic Web Services...
, Dublin Core
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata terms are a set of vocabulary terms which can be used to describe resources for the purposes of discovery. The terms can be used to describe a full range of web resources: video, images, web pages etc and physical resources such as books and objects like artworks...
, etc. Another important feature is the ability to import & export foreign knowledge representation
Knowledge representation
Knowledge representation is an area of artificial intelligence research aimed at representing knowledge in symbols to facilitate inferencing from those knowledge elements, creating new elements of knowledge...
languages for ontology matching.
Ontologies are developed for a specific purpose and application. Ensure the tool has the right interface for the information science team developing it - which could be highly technical for a help desk/decision tree system and could be a non-technical librarian or business analyst for a knowledge map over an intranet. Also make sure that the end product can be used - i.e. that the tool has an API or appropriate export capability to plug the ontology into the desired application(s).
Example editors
- a.k.a. software(Ontology, taxonomy and thesaurus management software available from The Synercon Group)
- Anzo for Excel (Includes an RDFS and OWL ontology editor within Excel; generates ontologies from Excel spreadsheets)
- Chimaera (Other web service by Stanford)
- CmapTools Ontology Editor (COE) (Java based ontology editor from the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Supports numerous formats)
- EMFText OWL2 Manchester Editor, Eclipse-based, open-source, Pellet integration
- FluentEditor for OWL, OWL ontologies editor with Controlled Natural Language (Controlled English). Supports OWLWeb Ontology LanguageThe Web Ontology Language is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies.The languages are characterised by formal semantics and RDF/XML-based serializations for the Semantic Web...
, RDFResource Description FrameworkThe Resource Description Framework is a family of World Wide Web Consortium specifications originally designed as a metadata data model...
, DLDescription logicDescription logic is a family of formal knowledge representation languages. It is more expressive than propositional logic but has more efficient decision problems than first-order predicate logic....
and Functional rendering, unlimited imports and built-in reasoning services. - HOZOHozoHozo is a graphical ontology editor especially created to produce heavy-weight and well thought out ontologies. It was developed in Japan through a partnership between the Department of Knowledge Systems , ISIR-Osaka University, and Enegate Co, Ltd.-External links:* * *...
(Java-based graphical editor especially created to produce heavy-weight and well thought out ontologies, from Osaka UniversityOsaka University, or , is a major national university located in Osaka, Japan. It is the sixth oldest university in Japan as the Osaka Prefectural Medical College, and formerly one of the Imperial Universities of Japan...
and Enegate Co, ltd.) - Java Ontology Editor (JOE) (1998)
- KAONKAONKAON is an ontology infrastructure developed by the University of Karlsruhe and the Research Center for Information Technologies in Karlsruhe....
(single user and server based solutions possible, open source, from FZI/AIFB Karlsruhe) - KMgen (Ontology editor for the KM language. KM: The Knowledge Machine)
- Knoodl (Free web application/service that is an ontology editor, wikiWikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
, and ontology registry. Supports creation of communities where members can collaboratively import, create, discuss, document and publish ontologies. Supports OWLWeb Ontology LanguageThe Web Ontology Language is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies.The languages are characterised by formal semantics and RDF/XML-based serializations for the Semantic Web...
, RDFResource Description FrameworkThe Resource Description Framework is a family of World Wide Web Consortium specifications originally designed as a metadata data model...
, RDFSRDF SchemaRDF Schema is a set of classes with certain properties using the RDF extensible knowledge representation language, providing basic elements for the description of ontologies, otherwise called RDF vocabularies, intended to structure RDF resources...
, and SPARQLSPARQLSPARQL is an RDF query language; its name is an acronym that stands for SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language. It was made a standard by the RDF Data Access Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium, and considered as one of the key technologies of semantic web...
queries. Available since early Nov 2006 from Revelytix, Inc..) - Model Futures IDEAS AddIn (free) A plug-in for Sparx Systems Enterprise ArchitectEnterprise Architect (Visual Modeling Platform)Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is a visual modeling and design tool based on the OMG UML. The platform supports: the design and construction of software systems; modeling business processes; and modeling industry based domains...
that allows IDEAS GroupIDEAS GroupThe IDEAS Group is the International Defence Enterprise Architecture Specification for exchange Group. The deliverable of the project is a data exchange format for military Enterprise Architectures. The scope is four nation and covers MODAF , DoDAF , and the Australian Defence Architecture...
4D ontologies to be developed using a UMLUnified Modeling LanguageUnified Modeling Language is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of object-oriented software engineering. The standard is managed, and was created, by the Object Management Group...
profile - Model Futures OWL Editor (Free) Able to work with very large OWL files (e.g. CycCycCyc is an artificial intelligence project that attempts to assemble a comprehensive ontology and knowledge base of everyday common sense knowledge, with the goal of enabling AI applications to perform human-like reasoning....
) and has extensive import and export capabilities (inc. UMLUnified Modeling LanguageUnified Modeling Language is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of object-oriented software engineering. The standard is managed, and was created, by the Object Management Group...
, Thesaurus Descriptor, MS Word, CA ERwin Data ModelerCA ERwin Data ModelerCA ERwin Data Modeler is a software tool for data modeling of custom developed information systems, including databases of transactional systems and data marts...
, CSV, etc.) - myWeb (Java-based, mySQL connection, bundled with applet that allows online browsing of ontologies (including OBO))
- Neologism (Web-based, open source, supports RDFS and a subset of OWL, built on DrupalDrupalDrupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...
) - NeOn ToolkitNeOn Toolkit (software)The NeOn Toolkit is an open source multi-platform ontology editor, which supports the development of ontologies in OWL/RDF. The editor is based on the Eclipse platform and provides a set of plug-ins covering a number of ontology engineering activities, including Annotation and Documentation,...
(Eclipse-based, open source, OWL support, several import mechanisms, support for reuse and management of networked ontologies, visualization, etc.…from NeOn Project) - OBO-Edit (Java-based, downloadable, open source, developed by the Gene Ontology Consortium for editing biological ontologies)
- OntoStudio (Eclipse-based, downloadable, support for RDF(S), OWL and F-Logic, graphical rule editor, visualizations, from ontoprise)
- Ontolingua (Web service offered by Stanford University)
- ProtégéProtege (software)Protégé is a free, open source ontology editor and a knowledge acquisition system. Like Eclipse, Protégé is a framework for which various other projects suggest plugins. This application is written in Java and heavily uses Swing to create the rather complex user interface...
(Java-based, downloadable, open source, many sample ontologies, from Stanford University) - ScholOnto (net-centric representations of research)
- Semantic Turkey (Firefox extension - also based on Java - for managing ontologies and acquiring new knowledge from the Web; developed at University of Rome, Tor Vergata )
- Swoop (Java-based, downloadable, open source, OWL Ontology browser and editor from the University of Maryland)
- Semaphore Ontology Manager (Commercial ontology, taxonomy and thesaurus management software available from Smartlogic Semaphore LimitedSmartlogic Semaphore LimitedSmartlogic Semaphore Limited is a software company. Smartlogic specialises in information retrieval software concentrating on adding Semantic capabilities to enterprise search and content management systems. The company's trading name is Smartlogic...
. Intuitive tool to manage the entire "build - enhance - review - maintain" ontology lifecycle.) - Synaptica (Ontology, taxonomy and thesaurus management software available from from Synaptica, LLC. Web based, supports OWLWeb Ontology LanguageThe Web Ontology Language is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies.The languages are characterised by formal semantics and RDF/XML-based serializations for the Semantic Web...
and SKOSSKOSSimple Knowledge Organization System is a family of formal languages designed for representation of thesauri, classification schemes, taxonomies, subject-heading systems, or any other type of structured controlled vocabulary. SKOS is built upon RDF and RDFS, and its main objective is to enable...
.) - TopBraid Composer (Eclipse-based, downloadable, full support for RDFS and OWL, built-in inference engine, SWRL editor and SPARQL queries, visualization, import of XML and UML, from TopQuadrant)
- Transinsight (The editor is especially designed for text mining ontologies)
- WebODE (Web service offered by the Technical University of Madrid)
- OWLGrEd (A UML based graphical ontology editor)
- TwoUse Toolkit (Eclipse-based, open source, model-driven ontology editing environment especially designed for software engineers)
- Be Informed Suite (Commercial tool for building large ontology based applications. Includes visual editors, inference engines, export to standard formats)
- Thesaurus Master (Manages creation and use of ontologies for use in data management and semantic enrichment by enterprise, government, and scholarly publishers.)
External links
- The Sweet Compendium of Ontology Building Tools
- http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/07/14/onto.html Ontology Tools Survey
- Platypus http://platypuswiki.sourceforge.net/ A semantic WikiWikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...