Developing Domain-Ontologies to Improve Sofware Engineering Knowledge

Ontologies in the Software Engineering domain can improve the acquisition of knowledge in this field by providing a formal representation of this knowledge domain. When encoded in a XML-based format, ontologies can therefore be easily processed by a knowledge management system, an expert system or a browser so it is possible to facilitate the location of Software Engineering resources in repositories or in the Semantic Web. This article presents two ontologies related to the domain of Software Engineering: a global ontology created from the IEEE Glossary of Software Engineering and a specific ontology created to conceptualize the knowledge about CMMI Systems Engineering/Software Engineering (staged) specification. These ontologies are now being used in objects semantic repositories for software engineering e-learning courses as well as support for application of CMMI certification.