Ontology-Based Integration of Information — A Survey of Existing Approaches

We review the use on ontologies for the integration of heterogeneous information sources. Based on an in-depth evaluation of existing approaches to this problem we discuss how ontologies are used to support the integration task. We evaluate and compare the languages used to represent the ontologies and the use of mappings between ontologies as well as to connect ontologies with information sources. We also ask for ontology engineering methods and tools used to develop ontologies for information integration. Based on the results of our analysis we summarize the state of the art in ontology-based information integration and name areas of further research activities. 1 Motivation The so-called information society demands for complete access to available information, which is often heterogeneous and distributed. In order to establish efficient information sharing, many technical problems have to be solved. First, a suitable information source must be located that might conta...