Survey of measures for the structural dimension of ontologies

摘要

Different authors from literature had argued that measures for ontologies can help: to select a suitable ontology for the user needs, to improve dynamic web service composition and to predict the completed system's overall quality. However, the majority of the ontologies' measures go no further than their definitions. We have compared a set of 51 measures according to minimal criteria that a measure must fulfill. In order to do a coherent comparison of their definitions and their intents we have formalized the measures using Object Constraint Language (OCL) upon the Ontology Definition Model (ODM). The formalization of the measures help to avoid the misunderstanding and misinterpretation introduced when measures are informally defined using natural language. The formal definitions upon a OMD metamodel assure that measures capture the concepts they intend for and could facilitate the implementation of measures extraction tools.