Modelling Ontologies Visually

• Modelling in Practice: to enable attendees to understand and create formal models of ontologies using concept diagrams. The tutorial will begin with an introduction to concept diagrams by way of presenting some simple case studies. Simple exercises will be included for attendees to attempt. [1 hour]

• Patterns for Ontology Engineering: to enable attendees to define commonly occurring constraints on ontologies using a systematic approach. Using the examples from the first component, the tutorial will cover diagrammatic patterns that can be used for commonly occurring forms of axioms (such as defining the domain and range of a property). This will form a major component of the tutorial and include many exercises for attendees to attempt. [45 mins]

• Model Effectiveness and Reasoning: to provide attendees with an understanding of how concept diagrams can be used to best effect. The emphasis will be on reasoning to merge patterns in order to present information more succinctly and effectively. This will include the presentation of pattern merging rules (sound inference rules) that have been designed to be intuitive. That is, we will explore syntactically different ways of presenting information, drawing out the relative strengths of each approach. Attendees will be given the opportunity to attempt some merging (reasoning) tasks in order to aid their understanding of this part of the tutorial. Time permitting, this part of the tutorial will demonstrate these features and show how they can influence the diagram chosen to make certain kinds of statements. [30 mins]

• Ontology Engineering: to allow attendees to draw together the material covered by producing a simple diagrammatically specified ontology. In addition to the exercises interspersed within the first three parts, this final component of the tutorial will allow attendees to work in small groups or individually, converting a simple, textually specified, domain into an ontology specified using concept diagrams. [1 hour]