As any other engineering product, ontologies evolve during their lifecycle due to several reasons such as accommodating new requirements or fixing issues. To keep track of these changes, several tools have defined ad-hoc formalisms to define and manage them. However, some of them are not based on standard interoperable languages such as RDF, and the RDF-based ones cover a limited set of changes. In this paper, we present the OWL Change Ontology (OCH), an ontology to capture changes in ontologies. Developed following the LOT methodology, OCH provides a declarative framework for documenting ontology changelogs. With this approach, ontologies gain a valuable resource to improve their lifecycle management, while associated semantic products such as declarative mappings (e.g., RML) and validation shapes (e.g., SHACL) can take advantage of standardized and machine-readable changelogs to streamline their schema evolution.
Conde-Herreros, D. Pernisch, R., Poveda-Villalón, M., Corcho, O., & Chaves-Fraga, D. (2024). OCH: The OWL Change Ontology
An ontology for describing changes between OWL ontology versions
The change operation that corresponds to the addition of the annotation of an entity
The change operation corresponding to addition of a characteristic to a property
The change operation corresponding to the addition of a class
The change operation corresponding to the addition of a data property
The change operation corresponding to the addition of an disjoint class relation between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the addition of a Disjoint Property relation between two properties
The change operation corresponding to the addition of the domain to a given property
The change operation corresponding to the addition of an equivalent class relation between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the addition of an equivalent property relation between two properties
The change operation corresponding to the addition of an individual to the ontology
The change operation corresponding to the addition of an inverse property relation between two properties
The change operation corresponding to the addition of an object property
The class that represents the addition of a property to an ontology
The change operation corresponding to the addition of the range to a given property
The change operation corresponding to the addition of the range of a given data property
The change operation corresponding to the addition of the range of a given object property
The change operation corresponding to the addition of a relation between two individuals
The change operation corresponding to the addition of a subClass relation between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the addition of a subProperty relation between two properties
The term that describes asymmetric properties.
Asymmetric Property
The class for representing sets of changes, it can be used for representing complex changes made out of atomic changes.
The set of change operations between ontology versions
The change operation corresponding to the change of a given class within the ontology
The change operation corresponding to the change of the relationship between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the change of a data property
The change operation corresponding to the deprecation of an OWL Entity
The change operation corresponding to the change of an disjoint class relation between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the change of a Disjoint Property
The change operation corresponding to the change of the domain of a given property
The change operation that corresponds to the change of the annotation of an entity
The class that represents all changes to OWL Entities: classes, properties, and individuals
The change operation corresponding to the change of an equivalent class relation between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the change of an equivalent property relation between two properties
The term that describes Functional Properties.
Functional Property
The change operation corresponding to the change of a given individual within the ontology
The change operation corresponding to the change of a relationship between two individuals within the ontology
The term that describes the inverse functional properties.
Inverse Functional Property
The change operation corresponding to the change of an inverse prop7 relation between two properties
The term that describes irreflexive properties.
Irreflexive Property
The change operation corresponding to the change of an object property
The term that describes those property characteristics that are exclusive to object properties
Object Property Characteristic
The class that represents all changes within an ontology being term-level, structural level, or higher level
The class that represents changes to properties
The top term that encompases all characteristics
Property Characteristic
The change operation corresponding to the change of a property characteristic.
The class that represents changes to property relations
The change operation corresponding to the change of the range of a given property
The term that describes reflexive properties.
Reflexive Property
The change operation that corresponds to the removal of the annotation of an entity
The change operation corresponding to the removal of a property characteristic
The change operation corresponding to the removal of a class
The change operation corresponding to the removal of a data property
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the disjoint class relation between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the removal of a Disjoint Property relation between two properties
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the domain of a given property
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the equivalent class relation between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the equivalent property relation between two properties
The change operation corresponding to the removal of an individual to the ontology
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the inverse property relation between two properties
The change operation corresponding to the removal of an object property
The class that represents the removal of a property to an ontology
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the range of a given property
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the range of a data property
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the range off an object property
The change operation corresponding to the removal of a relation between two individuals
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the subClass relation between two classes
The change operation corresponding to the removal of the subProperty relation between two properties
The change operation corresponding to the renaming of an OWL Entity within an ontology, this is whenever the semantics do not change and only the URI is modified
The change operation corresponding to the revokal of an ontological term
The class that represents changes to a subclass relationship between two classes.
The change operation corresponding to the change of the subProperty relation between to properties
The term that describes symmetric properties.
Symmetric Property
The term that describes transitive properties.
Transitive Property
The annotation property being added to an entity. Its range is rdf:Property to include both owl:AnnotationProperty and other annotations.
The characteristic being added to a given property
The property a characteristic is added to
The class being added in an AddClass operation
The data property that is being added to the ontology
The range being added to a data property
The added domain of an Add Domain change operation
The entity that is being added in a change operation
The individual being added in an AddIndividual operation
The object property being added to the ontology
The range that is being added to the object property
The property being added to the ontology
The property to which the change is being added.
The individual that is the relation being added in a change operation
The fromChangelog property indicates that a given change belongs to a Changelog
The issuedBy property indicates what Agent has issued a change.
The reasons and justifications behind a particular change.
The new version the ontology is updated to.
The former name of the OWL Entity that has been renamed
The former version of the ontology that is being outdated
The property that indicates an unspecified relation between two Ontology Changes
The annotation property being removed from an entity. Its range is rdf:Property to include both owl:AnnotationProperty and other annotations.
The characteristic that is being removed from a property
The property a characteristicic is removed from
The class that is being removed in an ontology
The data property that is being removed in an ontology
The range that is being removed from a Datatype Property
The domain that is being removed from a property
The entity that is being removed in a change operation
The individual that is being removed in an ontology
The object property being removed from an ontology
The range being removed from an object property
The property being removed from the ontology
The relation being removed from an individual in a change operation
The new name the OWL Entity is being renamed to
The subject of the disjoint class relation being added
The subject of the disjoint property relation being added
The subject of the equivalent class relation being added
The subject of the equivalent property relation being added
The subject of the inverse property relation being added
The individual that is the subject of the relation being added in a change operation
The subject of the subClass relation being added
The subject of the subProperty relation being added
The class that is the subject of the class relations being changed in a change operation
The individual that is the subject of the relation being changed in a change operation
The property that is the subject of the property relations being changed in a change operation
The Entity the annotation is removed from
The subject of the disjoint class relation being removed
The subject of the disjoint property relation being removed
The subject of the equivalent class relation being removed
The subject of the equivalent property relation being removed
The subject of the inverse property relation being removed
The individual that is the subject of the relation being removed in a change operation
The subject of the subProperty relation being removed
The content of the annotation being added to an entity.
The object of the disjoint class relation being added
The object of the disjoint property relation being added
The object of the equivalent class relation being added
The object of the equivalent property relation being added
The object of the inverse property relation being added
The individual that is the object of the relation being added in a change operation
The object of the subClass relation being added
The object of the subProperty relation being added
The class that is the object of the class relations being changed in a change operation
The property that is the object of the property relations being changed in a change operation
The content of the annotation being removed from an entity.
The object of the disjoint class relation being removed
The object of the disjoint property relation being removed
The object of the equivalent class relation being removed
The object of the inverse property relation being removed
The individual that is the object of the relation being removed in a change operation
The object of the subClass relation being removed
The object of the subProperty relation being removed
The individual that is the object of the relation being changed in a change operation
The ontological term that is being undeprecated