Managing an Evolving Shared Knowledge Repository: The Upgrade Process via Semantic Mediation

This research focuses on the problem of ontology change management in the context of evolving shared hierarchical knowledge repositories. We propose a framework for dealing with ontology evolution via semantic mediation. In particular we present a MultiAgent System (MAS) architecture that would be deployed to manage changes in shared ontologies such as update, deletion and renaming of classes in a dynamic environment. The proposed mediation process will be a mixed-initiative effort involving both intelligent agents and domain experts. The goal of this research is to extend the currently ongoing work in ontology evolution by including hierarchical ontology structures using semantic mediation. To validate this approach and to provide proof-of-concept, several tools have been used such as Jena and Protégé. We demonstrate how this multi-agent approach can enable ontology evolution and change management by using the JADE platform. Key-Words: Ontology Evolution, Shared Knowledge Repository, Change Management, Semantic Mediation