APECKS: Using and Evaluating a Tool for Ontology Construction with Internal and External KA Support

Tennison, Dr Jeni and O'Hara, Dr Kieron and Shadbolt, Prof Nigel (2002) APECKS: Using and Evaluating a Tool for Ontology Construction with Internal and External KA Support. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.

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This paper describes APECKS, an experimental tool for collaborative ontology construction. APECKS takes a different line to most ontology servers, in that it is designed for use by domain experts, possibly in the absence of a knowledge engineer, and its aim is to foster and support debate about domain ontologies. To that end, it does not enforce ideals of consistency or correctness, and instead allows different conceptualisations of a domain to coexist. The system architecture and lifecycle are introduced, and three extensive scenarios are outlined, showing how APECKS supports ontology construction, learning, ontology comparison and discussion. APECKS has also been used by several subjects during an evaluation experiment, and the results of this experiment are described. A particular factor about APECKS is that, as well as providing internal KA support, it is designed to interface with web-accessible KA tools, thereby allowing theoretically unlimited KA support for users. The prototype used WebGrid-II as external KA support, and the issues involved in integrating APECKS and WebGrid are discussed in detail.

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