A Methodology for Ontology Evolution and Versioning

The problem of versioning is present in several application areas, such as temporal databases, real-time computing and ontologies. This problem is generally defined as managing changes in a timely manner without loss of existing data. However, ontology versioning is more complicated than versioning in database because of the usage and content of ontology which incorporates semantic aspects. Consequently, ontology data models are much richer than those of database schemas. In this paper, we propose an approach of ontology evolution which incorporates a versioning management process, based on three phases: evolution changes, ontology coherence and versioning management. The proposed approach allows monitoring the evolution of ontology by creating a new version based on types of changes which express the evolution requirements. The inconsistencies that can be generated on the ontology after evolution are identified for each type of changes and are treated based on corrective operations defined by the system.