Cross-domain Semantic Drift Measurement in Ontologies Using the SemaDrift Tool and Metrics

Detecting and measuring semantic drift in different versions of ontologies across time is a novel area of research that rapidly gains attention. Nevertheless, there exist only a few relevant practical methods and tools and even fewer are flexible enough to be efficiently applied to multiple domains. As the often domain-specific nature of ontologies may render methods and tools for measuring semantic drift ineffective, this paper presents the application and findings of the SemaDrift suite of methods and tools in several domains, illustrating novel insights for the first time. While developed in the context of the PERICLES FP7 project, aimed at Digital Preservation, domain-independent text and structural similarity measures, available both as a software library and as a Protégé plugin for end-users, are now applied in the Dutch Historical Census and the BBC Sports Ontology. The two different domains demonstrate its applicability and ability to pinpoint the location, nature, origins and destinations of concept drift.