OntoQualitas: A framework for ontology quality assessment in information interchanges between heterogeneous systems

Nowadays, Internet technologies and standards are being systematically used by enterprises as tools to provide an infrastructure to connect people, enterprises, and applications they are using. In such complex networked enterprises, it is increasingly challenging to interchange, share, and manage internal and external digital information. In this context, to achieve interoperability between information systems is a challenging task. In order to solve the interoperability problem at semantic level, several ontology-based approaches have emerged. Although methodologies, methods, techniques, and tools to support the ontology building process were proposed, there are no mature models to measure this process, and the quality of implemented ontologies remains a major concern. This paper presents a framework, OntoQualitas, for evaluating the quality of an ontology whose purpose is the information interchange between different contexts. OntoQualitas includes previous and new measures to evaluate the ontology considering its specific purpose. Additionally, an empirical validation of OntoQualitas is presented.