Semantic Interoperability and Information Fluidity

Ontologies are developed to describe data semantics on the Semantic Web. Given the distributed nature and scale of the Semantic Web, a large number of ontologies with different terminologies and structures will be created to describe the same concepts and domains. Without semantic mapping, information fluidity within the Web could be blocked at the boundaries of these ontologies. Therefore, ontology mapping is needed to translate datasets represented by disparate ontologies. We believe that over time communities will incrementally build an ontology mapping between select ontologies based on their own communication interests. How will these interest-driven mapping activities eventually change semantic interoperability and information fluidity across the Web? This paper proposes metrics to quantify information fluidity and builds an analytical model with “small-world” graph theory to analyze the growth of the Semantic Web. Further with this model, we analyze how information fluidity can evolve by “market-based” semantic mapping activities occurring across the Web. One conclusion, based on this model, is that the development of decentralized ontology mappings can lead to significant information fluidity within the Semantic Web.