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Cohesion and coupling metrics for ontology modules

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Abstract

In recent years, an increasing number of ontologies and semantic web applications have been developed and used. A conscious effort has been made to develop methods to modularize ontologies. These methods contribute to building a new ontology. However, few studies have focused on the evaluative methods for ontology modules. In this study, we propose novel metrics to measure ontology modularity. To evaluate the ontology modules, we introduce cohesion and coupling based on the theory of software metrics. A cohesion metric and two coupling metrics were used to measure cohesion and coupling for ontology modules. The proposed metrics provide more detailed support in considering the different types of relationships between classes in ontology modules. In addition, the new coupling metrics contribute to checking the consistency between the ontology modules and their original ontology. The proposed metrics were validated using well-known verification frameworks and empirical experiments to complement the previous investigations. The results of this study offer ontology engineers valuable criteria with which to evaluate ontology modules and help ontology users select qualifying ontology modules.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, 599 Gwanak-no, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151-744, Korea

    Sunju Oh & Heon Y. Yeom

  2. Graduate School of Business, Seoul National University, 599 Gwanak-no, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151-916, Korea

    Joongho Ahn

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  1. Sunju Oh
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  2. Heon Y. Yeom
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  3. Joongho Ahn
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Correspondence to Sunju Oh.

Additional information

A prior version of this paper was presented at the 2009 IEEE International Conference on e-Business Engineering (ICEBE2009).

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Oh, S., Yeom, H.Y. & Ahn, J. Cohesion and coupling metrics for ontology modules. Inf Technol Manag 12, 81–96 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10799-011-0094-5

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