Reaching Semantic Interoperability

There is a need in specific domains to develop strong interaction between agents using emerging technologies to facilitate communication and collaborative use of information. A successful implementation of these technologies enables interoperability based on real time and transparent information transfers to make decisions or to work on concurrent basis. New approaches using standards, which allow stakeholders’ computer systems to exchange information between actors, have been used for the implementation of this interoperation. However, the main obstacle in enabling interoperability of the standards developed is the matching process involved in relating data representations. This process is complex but it is a ‘glue’ of the interoperability process and is very critical in making the exchange of information possible. This research is intended to develop new approaches using data representations structured in Ontologies. The research uses an example from the construction industry domain. The approach intends to facilitate the mapping process between ontologies coping with the semantic heterogeneity problem for the construction industry domain. The research will determine the main characteristics of the data representations needed to perform matching operations, based on the assumptions of the autonomy of the information sources, in order to formulate alternative solutions and expedite the information exchange process. The proposed approach uses plug-in matching prototypes from the protégé ontology editor. The result of this approach is to produce a framework that contains an analysis of the typical data representation of the actors in the construction domain.