Designing a three-layer ontology in a Web-based interconnection scenario

We consider an interconnection scenario over the Web, where diverse pre-existing and independent companies wish to cooperate and use XML as a common language for information interchange. To effectively support cooperation and information sharing, we propose an integration approach to design a three-layer ontology providing a semantic representation of the interorganizational knowledge in the considered domain. The ontology is organized into global concepts and concept relationships at different levels of detail, with a topic-based view. Global concepts are derived by analyzing exchange information and associated descriptions provided by each involved company, using integration techniques. Subject categories are superimposed to global concepts to give a summary, topic-based view of the interorganizational knowledge of the considered scenario, and to provide involved users with a meaningful way for information search and localization