Utility Evaluation of Tools for Collaborative Development and Maintenance of Ontologies

Ontologies lend themselves for resolving ambiguities in a wide range of applications, including mashups from diverse third-party information sources, and human- and machine-readable specifications of electronic business services (eBS). While tool support exists for the development and maintenance of ontologies, the question remains unanswered what is the degree of utility of these tools in the context of ambiguity resolution, e.g., while discovering eBS. In this paper, we fill the gap by performing an ontology-tool evaluation that allows a comparison of their utility. Based on a carefully selected set of requirements and criteria, we conduct a survey involving leading ontology-tool providers. One of the principal requirements is the collaborative ontology development and maintenance. The paper provides a detailed analysis of survey results.