Authors:
Hermann Bense
1
and
Bernhard G. Humm
2
Affiliations:
1
bense.com GmbH, Schwarze-Brüder-Str. 1, 44137 Dortmund, Germany
;
2
Hochschule Darmstadt - University of Applied Sciences, Haardtring 100, 64295 Darmstadt, Germany
Keyword(s):
Ontology Engineering, Multi-level Ontology Modelling, Class, Instance, Inheritance, Multi-facet Behaviour, RDF/RDFS, SPARQL.
Abstract:
One major challenge in ontology engineering is deciding whether an entity should be modelled as a class or as an instance. Different modelling traditions and guidelines lead to different modelling decisions. This causes problems when integrating ontologies modelled according to different guidelines and trying to query over integrated ontologies. This article proposes a modelling approach which rigorously utilizes multi-level ontology modelling. In particular, multi-facet behaviour allows entities to be modelled as classes and instances simultaneously, where needed. It is argued that this supports simplicity, expressiveness, modularity, flexibility and extensibility of ontologies. The guidelines can be fully implemented using the W3C standards RDF/RDFS and SPARQL, allowing to implement inheritance behaviour using standardized inferencing mechanisms.