Linkping University Electronic Press

Title:	The Relation between Ontologies and XML Schemas
Authors:	M. Klein, D. Fensel, F. van Harmelen, and I. Horrocks
Series:	Linköping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science ISSN 1401-9841
Issue:	Vol. 6 (2001), No. 004
URL:	http://www.ep.liu.se/ea/cis/2001/004/

Abstract:	Support in the exchange of data, information, and knowledge is becoming a key issue in current computer technology. Ontologies may play a major role in supporting the information exchange processes, as they provide a shared and common understanding of a domain. However, it is still an important question how ontologies can be applied fruitfully to online resources. Therefore, we will investigate the relation between ontology representation languages and document structure techniques (schemas) on the web. We will do this by giving a detailed comparison of OIL, a proposal for expressing ontologies in the Web, with XML Schema, a proposed standard for describing the structure and semantics of XML based documents. We will argue that these two refer to different levels of abstraction, but that, in several cases, it can be advantageous to base a document schema on an ontology. Lastly, we will show how this can be done by providing an translation procedure from an OIL ontology to a specific XML Schema. This will result in a schema that can be used to capture instances of the ontology.

Abstract:

Support in the exchange of data, information, and knowledge is becoming a key issue in current computer technology. Ontologies may play a major role in supporting the information exchange processes, as they provide a shared and common understanding of a domain. However, it is still an important question how ontologies can be applied fruitfully to online resources. Therefore, we will investigate the relation between ontology representation languages and document structure techniques (schemas) on the web. We will do this by giving a detailed comparison of OIL, a proposal for expressing ontologies in the Web, with XML Schema, a proposed standard for describing the structure and semantics of XML based documents. We will argue that these two refer to different levels of abstraction, but that, in several cases, it can be advantageous to base a document schema on an ontology. Lastly, we will show how this can be done by providing an translation procedure from an OIL ontology to a specific XML Schema. This will result in a schema that can be used to capture instances of the ontology.

First posting 2001-03-10	In ETAI area "The Semantic Web"
Original publication 2001-03-07	PDF Checksum

This article was first posted on the Internet as specified under "First posting", and appeared on the E-press server on the date specified under "Original publication".

LiU Electronic Press