From NeOn Wiki
KC-Viz
The user studies carried out at the beginning of the NeOn project clearly indicate that the user interaction metaphors used in ontology engineering toolkits are largely inadequate, especially for those users with limited experience. Hence, in our work on Human-Ontology Interaction we aim to overcome these problems and develop novel interactive frameworks for visualising and navigating large and complex ontologies. To this purpose we have designed and implemented an innovative solution, based on the idea of identifying ’key concepts’ in ontologies and using them as starting points for exploring and making sense of large ontologies. Key concepts can be seen as descriptive ontology elements that best summarise what a particular ontology is about. In our work we have defined this notion precisely and realised an algorithm for key concept extraction from ontologies, which combines theories from the cognitive sciences with formal methods from linguistics and ontology engineering. This innovative ontology summarisation method provides the basis for developing a novel approach to visualising and navigating ontologies. In particular, it enables ’middle-out ontology browsing,’ where it becomes possible to move through complex information spaces from the most valuable nodes (i.e., key concepts) and then to unfold larger chunks of the ontological graph to inspect specific subparts of an ontology. This approach is similar to map-based visualisation and navigation in Geographical Information Systems, where, e.g., major cities are displayed more prominently than others, depending on the current level of granularity. Empirical user tests will be carried out to validate the hypothesis that this approach can speed up the process of making sense of an ontology, a key precondition for ontology reuse. KC-Viz can be used to support a number of activities in the NeOn ontology engineering life-cycle. In particular, it can be used for ontology summarisation, ontology evaluation and assessment, especially with respect to informal user requirements. Finally, it indirectly supports ontology reuse, as making sense of an ontology (the key activity supported by KC-Viz) is a key precondition for ontology reuse.
Since NeOn Toolkit 2.4 it is not plugin anymore, it is part of the Core of the NeOn Toolkit.