Community-Driven Ontology Evolution: Gene Ontology Case Study

Communities on the Web capture, represent, and evolve their knowledge using ontologies, either explicitly or implicitly. The Gene Ontology project is a typical and advanced case study of a community-driven ontology creation and evolution. We use this case study to derive and illustrate factors that limit dynamic knowledge sharing in community environments. Specifically, we analyze ontology evolution implemented by the Gene Ontology community over the period of five years, as well as the used infrastructures for knowledge management. We observe limitations of communication practices within community-driven ontology construction, the lack of correlation between requested and actual changes in the ontology, and propose social and technical guidelines for making ontology-based knowledge sharing and evolution more responsive to users’ needs.