Domain Ontologies: A Database-Oriented Analysis

If the word ontology is more and more used in a number of domain, the capabilities and benefits of ontology for Information Systems management are still unclear. Therefore, the usage of ontology-based Information Systems in industry and services is not widespread. This paper analyses the concept of a domain ontology from a database perspective. As a result, firstly, we provide three criteria that distinguish domain ontology from other existing domain modeling approach which lead us to propose a new definition of domain ontologies. Secondly, based on the various approaches of ontology modeling followed by different communities, we propose a taxonomy of domain ontology. We show how they may be organized into a layered model, called the onion model, allowing to design and to use the capabilities of each category of ontology in an integrated environment. Finally, this paper presents several information systems based on ontology technologies and describe the kinds of services that should be provided to allow a powerful usage of ontology in data management.