Building Collaborative Ontologies: A Human Factors Approach (Chapter 15)

Abstract

The chapter describes the research performed within the KOMET (Knowledge and cOntent structuring via METhods of collaborative ontology design) project, which was aimed at developing a new paradigm for knowledge structuring. By knowledge structure, the authors define the main domain concepts and relations between them in a form of graph, map, or diagram. The approach considers the specifics of individual cognitive style. Two stages of research have been completed: research into correlations between the expert’s individual cognitive style and the peculiarities of expert’s subject domain ontology development; and study of correlations between the expert’s individual cognitive style and the group ontology design (including the design performed in groups consisting of experts either of similar or of different cognitive styles). The results of this work can be applied to organizing collaborative ontology design (especially for research and learning purposes), data structuring, and other group analytical work. Implications for practice are briefly delineated.