Ontology Views For Collaborative Ontology Development / quote 1 of 2
Personal views of a shared ontology
...we propose making a web- accessible system (a Grid portal) that maintains a single centrally-held XML document containing the ontology for which all users in a specified group will have access and editing rights. The system will provide each user with their own view of the ontology which will be created on-the-fly from the single source XML document [...] ..the system will allow each user to see (a) which nodes/links (concepts and definitions) in their view of the ontology are and are not shared with others, (b) the common core of the ontology (agreed classes and links) and (c) the ontology from other users’ perspectives. The system will provide appropriate visualisations of the views as annotated graphs and trees. It will also be possible to specify combinations of views, e.g. definitions on which user-1 and user-2 disagree. These features will help users to understand the conceptualisations of others, and so assist the process of reaching consensus.