Scalable Interoperability Through the Use of COIN Lightweight Ontology

There are many different kinds of ontologies used for different purposes in modern computing. A continuum exists from lightweight ontologies to formal ontologies. In this paper we compare and contrast the lightweight ontology and the formal ontology approaches to data interoperability. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses, but they both lack scalability because of the n problem. We present an approach that combines their strengths and avoids their weaknesses. In this approach, the ontology includes only high level concepts; subtle differences in the interpretation of the concepts are captured as context descriptions outside the ontology. The resulting ontology is simple, thus it is easy to create. It also provides a structure for context descriptions. The structure can be exploited to facilitate automatic composition of context mappings. This mechanism leads to a scalable solution to semantic interoperability among disparate data sources and contexts.