An Introduction to Ontology Engineering

In-house developed tools to assist with and learn about OE

This page currently has three categories of software application for ontology engineering:

Logics support
- DL axiom renderer - OWL in DL notation in Protégé
- OWL Classifier - detects OWL species and violations
Methods for ontology authoring
- CLaRO - competency question authoring
- ONSET - foundational ontology selection
- ROMULUS - foundational ontology repository
- BFO Classifier - align an ontology to BFO v2.0
- TDDonto2 - authoring support in Protégé
- OntoPartS - select part-whole relations
- TOMM - compute module metrics
- NOMSA - modularise an ontology
Natural language tools that double as technique illustrations
- isiZulu verbaliser - Python-based with Owlready
- Afrikaans verbaliser - comparing templates to a grammar-based approach
- ODE localiser - Protégé and Manchester syntax in Afrikaans and Spanish

The tools are listed in the order I would expect them to be of some use, when one follows the order of the topics as covered in the OE textbook. Some context can be found in the FOIS'23 Demo paper.

Logics support

DL axiom renderer
Renders the class axioms of the OWL ontology in DL notation in Protégé 5.x

Type: Protégé plugin
Download: from GitHub (jar file and source code)
Reference: A brief introduction is available as blog post
People: Michael Harrison and Larry Liu
Context: Based on the students' OE mini-project in 2017

OWL Classifier
Determines the OWL species of the ontology, and which axioms violate the other species or profiles

Type: stand-alone platform-independent tool
Download: from GitHub (jar file and source code)
Reference: A brief introduction is available as blog post
It is also used in: Keet, C.M., Kutz, O. Orchestrating a Network of Mereo(topo)logical Theories. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Knowledge Capture (K-CAP'17), Austin, Texas, USA, December 4-6, 2017. ACM, 11:1-11:8.
People: Brian Mc George, Aashiq Parker, and Muhummad Patel
Context: OE mini-project in 2016

Methods for ontology authoring

CLaRO: Competency question Language for specifying Requirements for an Ontology, model, or specification
To assist with writing competency questions (at the TBox level)

Type: stand-alone platform-independent tool
Download: from GitHub (jar file, source code, data)
Reference: Keet, C.M., Mahlaza, Z., Antia, M.-J. CLaRO: a Controlled Language for Authoring Competency Questions. 13th Metadata and Semantics Research Conference (MTSR'19). 28-31 Oct 2019, Rome, Italy. Springer CCIS vol 1057, 3-15.
There is also a video tutorial
People: Maria Keet, Zola Mahlaza, Mary-Jane Antia
Context: research, PhD of Antia

ONSET: ONtology Selection and Explanation Tool
To choose a foundational ontology for your ontology development project

Type: stand-alone platform-independent tool, Web-based
Download: stand-alone version, Online and source files
Reference: Khan, Z., Keet, C.M. ONSET: Automated Foundational Ontology Selection and Explanation. 18th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW'12), A. ten Teije et al. (Eds.). Oct 8-12, Galway, Ireland. Springer, LNAI 7603, 237-251.
People: Zubeida Khan and Maria Keet
Context: BSc(hons) in CS Honours project of Zubeida Khan in 2011

ROMULUS: Repository of Ontologies for MULtiple USes
A library of foundational ontologies that are aligned, merged, queryable, etc

Type: Web-based
Download: Online
Reference: Khan, Z.C., Keet, C.M. ROMULUS: a Repository of Ontologies for MULtiple USes populated with foundational ontologies. Journal on Data Semantics, 2016, 5(1):19-36.
People: Zubeida Khan and Maria Keet
Context: MSc in CS of of Zubeida Khan

BFO Classifier
A tool that assists with aligning a core, top-domain, or domain ontology to BFO v2.0

Type: Stand-alone platform-independent tool
Download: From Github: version 1 and version 2 (jar files and source code)
Reference: Emeruem, C., Keet, C.M., Khan, Z.C., Wang, S. BFO Classifier: Aligning domain ontologies to BFO. FOUST-VI: 6th Workshop on Foundational Ontology, part of JOWO'22. Prince Sales, T., Hedblom, M. and Tan, H. (Eds). CEUR-WS vol 3249. 13p. 15-19 August, Jonkoping, Sweden 2022.
Bernabé, C.H., Keet, C.M., Khan, Z.C., Mahlaza, Z. A method to improve alignments between domain and foundational ontologies. 13th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems 2023 (FOIS'23). IOS Press, 18-20 July Sherbrooke, Canada (in print)
The BFO 2.0 Classifier page, which also has a user manual, and there's a brief introduction in a blog post
People: Chiadika Emeruem, Steve Wang, Zubeida Khan (Dawood), Maria Keet
Context: Based on the students' OE mini-project in 2021 and extended afterwards

TDDonto2
To assist with Test-Driven Development for ontologies

Type: Protégé plugin
Download: from GitHub (jar file and source code)
Reference: Davies, K. Keet, C.M., Lawrynowicz, A. TDDonto2: A Test-Driven Development Plugin for arbitrary TBox and ABox axioms. The Semantic Web: ESWC 2017 Satellite Events, Blomqvist, E et al. (eds.). Springer LNCS vol 10577, 120-125. Portoroz, Slovenia, May 28 - June 2, 2017.
There is also a video tutorial
People: Kieren Davies, Maria Keet, Agnieszka Lawrynowicz
Context: BSc(hons) in CS Honours project (Davies) and ARISTOTELES project (Lawrynowicz, Keet)

OntoPartS
Assitance with choosing a part-whole relation, guided by entities fmor a foundational ontology

Type: stand-alone executable
Download: from this page
Reference: Morales-González, A., Fernández-Reyes, F.C., Keet, C.M. OntoPartS: a tool to select part-whole relations in OWL ontologies. ESWC 2012 Satellite Events. E. Simperl et al. (Eds.). Springer, LNCS vol. 7540, 1-6. 29-31 May 2012, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
People: Maria Keet, Francis Fernández, and Annette Morales
Context: OE mini-project in 2010

TOMM: Tool for Ontology Module Metrics
Compute ontology module metrics automatically

Type: stand-alone platform-independent tool
Download: it's all in this zipped file
Reference: Khan, Z.C., Keet, C.M. Dependencies between modularity metrics towards improved modules. 20th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW'16). Blomqvist, E., Ciancarini, P., Poggi, F., Vitali, F. (Eds.). Springer LNAI vol. 10024, 400-415. 19-23 November 2016, Bologna, Italy.
People: Zubeida Khan and Maria Keet
Context: PhD thesis of Zubeida Khan

NOMSA: Novel Ontology Modularisation SoftwAre
Simplify an ontology using various abstraction methods

Type: stand-alone platform-independent tool
Download: from this page
Reference: Khan, Z.C., Keet, C.M. NOMSA: Automated modularisation for abstraction modules. Proceedings of the EKAW 2018 Posters and Demonstrations Session (EKAW'18). CEUR-WS vol. 2262, pp13-16. 12-16 Nov. 2018, Nancy, France.
A brief inroduction is available as a blog post
There is also a video tutorial
People: Zubeida Khan and Maria Keet
Context: PhD thesis of Zubeida Khan

Natural language tools

IsiZulu Verbaliser
Verbalisation of OWL ontologies into isiZulu

Type: stand-alone with Python
Download: from GitHub
Reference: Keet, C.M. Xakaza, M., Khumalo, L. Verbalising OWL ontologies in isiZulu with Python. The Semantic Web: ESWC 2017 Satellite Events, Blomqvist, E et al. (eds.). Springer LNCS vol 10577, 59-64. Portoroz, Slovenia, May 28 - June 2, 2017.
People: Maria Keet, Langa Khumalo, Musa Xakaza
Context: GeNI project

Afrikaans Verbalisers
Verbalisation of OWL ontologies into Afrikaans, using two different techniques

Type: stand-alone tools
Download: from the CS honours projects repository
Reference: Sanby, L., Todd, I., Keet, C.M. Comparing the template-based approach to GF: the case of Afrikaans. 2nd International Workshop on Natural Language Generation and the Semantic Web (WebNLG'16). ACL. September 6, 2016, Edinburgh, Scotland.
People: Lauren Sanby, Ion Todd, and Maria Keet
Context: BSc(hons) in CS Honours projects in 2015

ODE localiser
Localisation of the Protégé ODE and some of the Manchester Syntax, where both the class and object property description views in Protégé and the keywords are in Afrikaans or in Spanish, depending on the plugin.

Type: Protégé plugin
Download: Afrikaans plugin and Spanish plugin jar files; source code on github
Reference:A brief overview is described in this blog post
People: Adam Kaliski, Casey O'Donnell, Michael Harrison, Toky Raboanary
Context: Based on the OE mini-project of Adam Kaliski and Casey O'Donnell in 2017