'Thesaurus' and 'Ontology:' A Study of The Definitions Found in the Computer and Information Science Literature, by Means of an Analytical-Synthetic Method

摘要

This is a comparative analysis of the term ontology, used in the computer science domain, with the term thesaurus, used in the information science domain. The aim of the study is to establish the main convergence points of these two knowledge representation instruments and to point out their differences. In order to fulfill this goal an analytical-synthetic method was applied to extract the meaning underlying each of the selected definitions of the instruments. The definitions were obtained from texts well accepted by the research community from both areas. The definitions were applied to a KWIC system in order to rotate the terms that were examined qualitatively and quantitatively. We concluded that thesauri and ontologies operate at the same knowledge level, the epistemological level, in spite of different origins and purposes.