COVE -Collaborative Ontology Visualization and Evolution

Recent developments in Semantic Web technology promise to provide new means for collaboration among knowledge workers. Large aerospace efforts have intense requirements for semantic collaboration, in order to enhance project communication and reduce mission risk. The key element in this approach is the Ontology – a structured set of concepts and relationships between them that allow data from different sources to interact in predictable and consistent ways. We present COVE, a system we have developed that helps users design and reuse ontologies. In our work, we have identified the major challenges facing ontology collaboration. The first generation of COVE addresses some of these issues, and has provided promising case studies. The next generation of COVE will expand on these capabilities to provide comprehensive support for collaboration throughout the engineering and mission support lifecycle.