Heuristic Transformation of Well-Constructed Conceptual Maps into OWL Preliminary Domain Ontologies

Ontologies are a form of knowledge representation that is meant for software systems, or agents, as well as for human users. Building an ontology consists of, in short, formally specifying concepts and their relations concerning a certain knowledge domain. Such specification should convey an interpretation of the domain as agreed by experts and requires specific ontology engineering skills. In relation to ontologies, conceptual maps are a more informal, simple and, thus, accessible form of knowledge representation. However, the freedom enjoyed in defining concepts and their links makes it difficult to directly draw formal representations from conceptual maps. This work presents heuristics that are able to transform conceptual maps into ontologies specified in OWL (Web Ontology Language). In this way, the ease of construction of conceptual maps can be taken advantage of to alleviate the knowledge acquisition bottleneck that is inherent in ontology engineering.