Author: Thomas Gruber
Title: Toward Principles for the Design of Ontologies Used for Knowledge Sharing
Date: August, 1993 (revision of March 1993)
Type: journal article
File: onto-design.pdf

Citation: Gruber, Thomas. Toward Principles for the Design of Ontologies Used for Knowledge Sharing. International Journal Human-Computer Studies Vol. 43, Issues 5-6, Novemer 1995, p.907-928.

Legacy URL: http://ksl-web.stanford.edu/KSL_Abstracts/KSL-93-04.html

Context: Introduces the notion that ontologies are design and should be amenable to engineering methodologies. Proposes five design criteria for ontologies.

Abstract: Recent work in Artificial Intelligence is exploring the use of formal ontologies as a way of specifying content-specific agreements for the sharing and reuse of knowledge among software entities. We take an engineering perspective on the development of such ontologies. Formal ontologies are viewed as designed artifacts, formulated for specific purposes and evaluated against objective design criteria. We describe the role of ontologies in supporting knowledge sharing activities, and then present a set of criteria to guide the development of ontologies for these purposes. We show how these criteria are applied in case studies from the design of ontologies for engineering mathematics and bibliographic data. Selected design decisions are discussed, and alternative representation choices and evaluated against the design criteria.