The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model - A New Standard for Knowledge Sharing

The tutorial first addresses requirements and semantic problems to integrate digital information into large scale, meaningful networks of knowledge that support not only access to source documents but also use and reuse of integrated information. The pros and cons of developing global ontologies are discussed. It is argued that core ontologies of relationships are fundamental to schema integration and play a completely different role to that of specialist terminologies in practical knowledge management. The CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) is presented as an example of such a global model. It is a core ontology and new ISO standard (ISO 21127, accepted September 2006), originally designed for the semantic integration of information from museums, libraries, and archives. It is a product of re-engineering the dominant underlying common concepts from representative data structures. It is not prescriptive, but provides a controlled language to describe common highlevel semantics that allow for information integration at the schema level. The tutorial addresses part of the technology needed for information aggregation and integration in the global information environment, namely the question to which extent and in which form global schema integration is feasible. The ability of the CRM to support integration has been demonstrated in a large range of different domains including cultural heritage, e-science and biodiversity. Conceptual modeling by specializing such a well-tested core ontology not only reduces drastically development time and improves system quality, but provides basic semantic interoperability more or less for free. The tutorial will present characteristic applications.