Ontology Modularization for Knowledge Selection: Experiments and Evaluations

Problems with large monolithical ontologies in terms of reusability, scalability and maintenance have led to an increasing interest in modularization techniques for ontologies. Currently, existing work suffers from the fact that the notion of modularization is not as well understood in the context of ontologies as it is in software engineering. In this paper, we experiment on applying state-of-the-art tools for ontology modularization in the context of a concrete application: the automatic selection of knowledge components to be used for Web page annotation and semantic browsing. We conclude that, in a broader context, an evaluation framework is required to guide the choice of a modularization tool, in accordance with the requirements of the considered application.