Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Ontologies for Knowledge Management

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Handbook on Ontologies

Part of the book series: International Handbooks on Information Systems ((INFOSYS))

Summary

Within Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, the term ontologies was coined in the Knowledge Sharing and Reuse Effort, for efficient engineering of (distributed, cooperating) knowledge-based systems. It is not surprising that it soon entered the Knowledge Management (KM) area: Sharing and reuse of personal, group, and organizational knowledge are among the central goals aimed at in most KM projects. In this chapter we introduce the main ideas of KM, as well as the role of and requirements for information technology (IT) in KM. We discuss the potential of ontologies as elements in IT support for KM. We characterize their current role in research and practice, derive a working focus for the near future, and conclude with an outlook on trends in KM software and their implications on ontologies.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 349.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 449.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 449.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The same dichotomy was also called personalization vs. codification strategy, organic vs. mechanistic approach, or community model vs. cognitive model view, see [1, 44].

  2. 2.

    For concrete software products it is sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish Type 1 and Type 2. But, for the purpose of this book, it is sufficient to clarify whether an application is based on explicit, formal ontologies, or not.

  3. 3.

    Like, for instance, the NeOn toolkit (http://www.neon-toolkit.org/), KAON (http://kaon.semanticweb.org),orProtégé(http://protege.stanford.edu),cp. [29].

  4. 4.

    Cp. Tadzebao, WebODE, or DILIGENT [29, 75].

  5. 5.

    See http://www.aic.nrl.navy.mil/~aha/lessons/, cp. [76].

  6. 6.

    Log entries of maintenance experience comprise fault events, maintenance measures, repair actions, etc.

  7. 7.

    One enabling factor for commercially successful visualization suites for knowledge organization and access, may have been the IEEE Topic Map standard, see http://www.topicmaps.org/. Topic maps are often seen a competitor to ontologies because they serve partially similar purposes, but have different roots, some incompatible basic design decisions, a different research community. However, they have partially similar goals and application areas and complementary strengths to the mainstream ontology approaches – in particular, the design for human understanding and manipulation – such that the authors see them allies in the long term, rather than competitors.

  8. 8.

    Due to space limitations, we cannot include references for all the named systems; but they can be found in [70].

References

  1. Abecker A (2004) Business-process oriented knowledge management – concepts, tools, and applications. PhD thesis, University of Karlsruhe.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Abecker A, Bernardi A, Maus H, Sintek M, Wenzel C (2000) Information supply for business processes – coupling workflow with document analysis and information retrieval. Knowledge-Based Systems 13(5):271–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Abecker A, Bernardi A, van Elst L (2003) Agent technology for distributed organizational memories. In: Proc ICEIS-03, vol. 2, pp. 3–10, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Abecker A, Reuschling C, Tabor S, Apostolou D, Maass W, Mentzas G (2003) Towards an information ontology for knowledge asset trading. In: Proc ICE-2003, pp. 187–194.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Alani H, Kim S, Millard DE, Weal MJ, Hall W, Lewis PH, Shadbolt NR (2003) Automatic ontology-based knowledge extraction from Web documents. IEEE Intelligent Systems 18(1):14–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Alani H, O’Hara K, Shadbolt N (2002) ONTOCOPI: methods and tools for identifying communities of practice. In: Intelligent Information Processing Conference, IFIP World Computer Congress (WCC), Montreal, Canada.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  7. Altmann R, Bada M, Chai X, Carillo MW, Chen R, Abernethy N (1999) RiboWeb: an ontology-based system for collaborative molecular biology. IEEE Intelligent Systems 14(5):68–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Apostolou D, Mentzas G, Klein B, Abecker A, Maass W (2008) Interorganizational knowledge exchanges. IEEE Intelligent Systems 2008(July):65–74.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Becerra-Fernandez I (2001) Locating expertise at NASA. Knowledge Management Review 4(4):33–37.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Bernardi A, Sintek S, Abecker A (1998) Combining artificial intelligence, database technology, and hypermedia for intelligent fault recording. In: Proc ISOMA’98.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Biesalski E, Abecker A, Breiter M (forthcoming, 2008) Towards integrated, intelligent human resource management. Applied Ontology: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Ontological Analysis and Conceptual Modeling. IOS.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Bloehdorn S, Cimiano P, Duke A, Haase P, Heizmann J, Thurlow I, Völker J (2007) Ontology-based question answering for digital libraries. In: Proc 11th ECDL.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Boer A, Hoekstra R, Winkels R (2001) The CLIME ontology. In: Proc Second Int Workshop on Legal Ontologies, University of Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Bonifacio M, Bouquet P, Mameli G, Nori M (2002) KEx: a peer-to-peer solution for distributed knowledge management. In: Karagiannis D, Reimer U (eds) PAKM 2002. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Bonifacio M, Giunchiglia F, Zaihrayeu I (2005) Peer-to-Peer knowledge management. In: Proc I-KNOW’05.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Börner K, Chen C (eds) (2001) Visual interfaces to digital libraries–Its past, present, and future. In: Workshop at 1st ACM+IEEE Joint Conf on Digital Libraries (JCDL-2001).

    Google Scholar 

  17. Carr L, Miles-Board T, Wills G, Woukeu A, Hall W (2004) Towards a knowledge-aware office environment. In: Karagiannis D, Reimer U (eds) PAKM 2004. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Conklin E, Weil W (1997) Wicked problems: naming the pain in organizations. White Paper of Group Decision Support Systems Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Cottam H (1999) Ontologies to assist process oriented knowledge acquisition. Technical Report SP142, SPEDE Project, University of Nottingham.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Davenport T, Prusak L (1997) Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. Harvard Business School Press, Boston.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Davies J, Fensel D, van Harmelen F (eds) (2002) Towards the Semantic Web: Ontology-Driven Knowledge Management. Wiley, London.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Decker S, Erdmann M, Fensel D, Studer R (1999) Ontobroker: ontology based access to distributed and semi-structured information. In: Meersman R, Tari Z, Stevens SM (eds) IFIP TC2/WG2.6 Eighth Working Conference on Database Semantics (DS-8). IFIP Conference Proceedings 138. Kluwer, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Dieng-Kuntz R, Matta N (eds) (2002) Knowledge management and organizational memories. Kluwer, Dordrecht.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. Dignum V (2004) A model for organizational interaction: based on agents, founded in Logic. PhD thesis, Universiteit Utrecht. SIKS dissertation series.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Falbo RA, Arantes DO, Natali ACC (2004) Integrating knowledge management and groupware in a software development environment. In: Karagiannis D, Reimer U (eds) PAKM 2004. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Gandon F, Poggi A, Rimassa G, Turci P (2002) Multi-agent corporate memory management system. Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence 16(9–10):699–720.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Geroimenko V, Chen C (eds) (2003) Visualizing the Semantic Web. Springer, Berlin.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  28. Golebiowska J, Dieng-Kuntz R, Corby O, Mousseau D (2001) Building and exploiting ontologies for an automobile project memory. In: Gómez-Pérez A, et al (eds) IJCAI-01 Workshop on Ontologies and Information Sharing, CEUR-Proceedings 47.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Gómez-Pérez A, Corcho-Garcia O, Fernandez-Lopez M (2003) Ontological Engineering. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Guarino N, Masolo C, Vetere G (1999) Ontoseek: content-based access to the web. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 14(3):70–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Henze N, Dolog P, Nejdl W (2004) Reasoning and ontologies for personalized e-Learning in the Semantic Web. Journal of Educational Technology and Society 7(4):82–97.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Herman I, Melancon G, Marshal MS (2000) Graph visualization and navigation in information visualization: a survey. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 6(1):24–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Holsapple CW (ed) (2003) Handbook on knowledge management, vols. 1 and 2. International Handbooks on Information Systems. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Jurisica I, Mylopoulos J, Yu E (2004) Ontologies for knowledge management: an information systems perspective. Journal of Knowledge and Information Systems (2004)6:380–401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Kalfoglou Y, Domingue J, Motta E, Vargas-Vera M, Buckingham-Shum S (2001) MyPlanet: an ontology-driven web-based personalised news service. In: Gómez-Pérez A, Gruninger M, Stuckenschmidt H, Uschold M (eds) IJCAI-01 Workshop on Ontologies and Information Sharing. CEUR-Proceedings.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Woitsch R, Karagiannis D (2005) Process oriented knowledge management: a service based approach. Journal of Universal Computer Science 11(4):565–588.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Kumar V, Furuta R, Allen RB (1997) Metadata visualization for digital libraries: interactive timeline editing and review. In: Proc Third ACM Conf on Digital Libraries.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Laender A, Ribeiro-Neto B, da Silva A, Teixeira J (2002) A brief survey of web data extraction tools. ACM SIGMOD Record 31(2).

    Google Scholar 

  39. Lau T, Sure Y (2002) Introducing ontology-based skills management at a large insurance company. In: Modellierung 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Liao M, Hinkelmann K, Abecker A, Sintek M (1999) A competence knowledge base system for the organizational memory. In: Puppe F (ed) Proc XPS-99. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Lopez V, Uren V, Motta E, Pasin M (2007) AquaLog: an ontology-driven question answering system for organizational semantic intranets. Journal of Web Semantics 5(2):72–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Maier R (2007) Knowledge Management Systems, 3rd edition. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  43. McGuiness D (1998) Ontological issues for knowledge-enhanced search. In: Guarino N (ed) Proc FOIS’98. IOS, Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Mentzas G, Apostolou D, Young R, Abecker A (2002) Knowledge asset networking. Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing. Springer, London.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Middleton S, Alani H, Shadbolt N, Roure DD (2002) Exploiting synergy between ontologies and recommender systems. In: Proc WWW2002, Semantic Web Workshop.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Mulholland P, Zdrahal Z, Domingue J, Hatala M (2000) Integrating working and learning: a document enrichment approach. Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology 19(3):171–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. O’Leary D (1998) Knowledge management systems: converting and connecting. IEEE Intelligent Systems 13(3):30–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. O’Leary D (1998) Using AI in knowledge management: knowledge bases and ontologies. IEEE Intelligent Systems 13(3):34–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Missikoff M, Schiappelli F (2005) A method for ontology modeling in the business domain. In: EMOI-INTEROP 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Pedersen MK, Larsen MH (2000) Inter-organizational systems and distributed knowledge management in electronic commerce. In: Svensson L, Snis U, Sorensen C, Fägerlind H, Lindroth T, Magnusson M, Östlund C (eds) Proc IRIS 23.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Pisanelli DM (ed) (2004) Ontologies in medicine. Vol. 102 in Studies in Health Technology and Informatics. IOS, Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Pisanelli DM, Gangemi A, Steve G (2000) The role of ontologies for an effective and unambiguous dissemination of clinical guidelines. In: Dieng R, Corby O (eds) Proc 12th EKAW. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Rath AS, Kröll M, Andrews K, Lindstaedt S, Granitzer M, Tochtermann K (2006) Synergizing standard and ad-hoc processes. In: Reimer U, Karagiannis D (eds) PAKM 2006. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Reimer U, Margelisch A, Staudt M (2000) EULE: a knowledge-based system to support business processes. Knowledge-Based Systems 13(5):261–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Roth-Berghofer T (2002) Knowledge maintenance of case-based reasoning systems. The SIAM methodology. PhD thesis, University of Kaiserslautern.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Schaaf M, Maximini R, Bergmann R, Tautz C, Traphöner R (2002) Supporting electronic design reuse by integrating quality-criteria into CBR-based IP selection. In: Proc 6th ECCBR.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Sebastiani F (2002) Machine learning in automated text categorization. ACM Computing Surveys 34(1):1–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Sidhu AS, Dillon TS, Chang E, and Chen JY (eds) (2007) Special issue on ontologies for bioinformatics. International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications (IJBRA) 3(3):261–428.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Sintek M, Tschaitschian B, Abecker A, Bernardi A, Müller H-J (2000) Using ontologies for advanced information access. In: Domingue J (ed) PAKeM 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Spyns P, Oberle D, Volz R, Zheng J, Jarra M, Sure Y, Studer R, Meersman R (2002) Ontoweb – a semantic web community portal. In: Proc PAKM-2002.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Staab S, Maedche A (2000) Knowledge portals: ontologies at work. The AI Magazine 22(2):63–75.

    Google Scholar 

  62. Stojanovic L (2004) Methods and tools for ontology evolution. PhD thesis, University of Karlsruhe.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Stuckenschmidt H, van Harmelen F (2001) Knowledge-based validation, aggregation and visualization of meta-data: analyzing a web-based information system. In: Zhong N, Yao Y, Ohsuga S (eds) Proc Web Intelligence 2001. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  64. Sure Y, Maedche A, Staab S (2000) Leveraging Corporate Skill Knowledge - From ProPer to OntoProPer. In: Mahling D, Reimer U (eds) Proc PAKM-2000.

    Google Scholar 

  65. Sure Y, Staab S, Studer R (2002) Methodology for development and employment of ontology based knowledge management applications. ACM SIGMOD Record 31(4):18–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Susarla A, Liu D, Whinston A (2002) Peer-to-peer knowledge management. In: [33].

    Google Scholar 

  67. Tudhope D, Alani H, Jones C (2001) Augmenting thesaurus relationships: possibilities for retrieval. Journal of Digital Information 1(8):41.

    Google Scholar 

  68. Uren V, Cimiano P, Iria J, Handschuh S, Vargas-Vera M, Motta E, Ciravegna F (2006) Semantic annotation for knowledge management: requirements and a survey of the state of the art. Journal of Web Semantics 4(1):14–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. van Elst L, Abecker A (2002) Ontologies for information management: balancing formality, stability, and sharing scope. Expert Systems with Applications 23(4):357–366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. van Elst L, Dignum V, Abecker A (eds) (2004) Agent-Mediated Knowledge Management. LNAI 2926. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  71. van Engers TM, Kordelaar PJ, den Hartog J, Glassée E (2002) POWER: programme for an ontology based working environment for modelling and use of regulations and legislation. In: DEXA-2002 Electronic Government Workshop.

    Google Scholar 

  72. van Heijst G, van der Spek R, Kruizinga E (1998) The lessons learned cycle. In: Borghoff UM, Pareschi R (eds) Information Technology for Knowledge Management. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  73. Vidou G, Dieng-Kuntz R, Ghali AE, Evangelou C, Giboin A, Tifous A, Jacquemart S (2006) Towards an ontology for knowledge management in communities of practice. In: Reimer U, Karagiannis D (eds) PAKM-2006. Springer, Berlin.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Gresse von Wangenheim C (2002) Operationalizing Reuse of Software Measurement Planning Knowledge. PhD thesis, University of Kaiserslautern.

    Google Scholar 

  75. Vrandecic D, Pinto HS, Sure Y, Tempich C (2005) The DILIGENT knowledge processes. Journal of Knowledge Management 9(5):85–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  76. Weber R, Aha D, Becerra-Fernandez I (2001) Intelligent lessons learned systems. International Journal of Expert Systems Research and Applications 20(1):17–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Weber R, Kaplan R (2002) Knowledge-based knowledge management. In: Faucher C, Jain L, Ichalkaranje N (eds) Innovations in Knowledge Engineering. Physica, Heidelberg.

    Google Scholar 

  78. Yimam D (2000) Expert finding systems for organizations: domain analysis and the DEMOIR approach. In: Ackerman M, Cohen A, Pipek V, Wulf V (eds) Beyond Knowledge Management: Sharing Expertise. MIT, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Process Engineering (IPE), FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Andreas Abecker

  2. German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH), Knowledge Management Department, 67655, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Ludger van Elst

Authors
  1. Andreas Abecker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ludger van Elst
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Andreas Abecker or Ludger van Elst .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Informatik, Universität Koblenz-Landau, Universitaetsstr. 1, Koblenz, 56016, Germany

    Steffen Staab

  2. Inst. Angewandte Informatik und, Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, 76128, Germany

    Rudi Studer

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Abecker, A., van Elst, L. (2009). Ontologies for Knowledge Management. In: Staab, S., Studer, R. (eds) Handbook on Ontologies. International Handbooks on Information Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92673-3_32

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92673-3_32

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-70999-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-92673-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation