Ontology-based cloud platform for human-driven applications

The number of systems and applications where large groups of people are included into the information processing “loop” is growing. Common problem with this kind of systems is that each of them requires large number of contributors and collecting this number may take significant time and effort. This paper aims at development of an ontology-driven cloud platform that would support deployment of various human-based applications and therefore reuse the existing crowd. Three features that distinguish the proposed platform from similar developments are ontologies, digital contracts and resource monitoring facilities. Ontological mechanisms (ability to precisely define semantics and use inference to find related terms) are used to find and allocate human resources required by software services. Digital contracts are used to achieve predictability required by cloud users (application developers). Finally, explicit mechanisms for resource monitoring are essential, as human resources are always limited and the developers of applications deployed in the platform should be aware of particular limitations.