Developing process-base ontology for knowledge management technologies

This paper is an attempt to develop a new ontology for knowledge management (KM) technologies, determining the relationships between these technologies and classification of them. The study applies NOY methodology. Protégé software and OWL language are used for building the ontology. The presented ontology is evaluated with abbreviation and consistency criteria and knowledge retrieval of KM technologies by experts. All the main concepts in the scope of KM technologies are extracted from existing literature. There are 234 words, 49 out of them are domain concepts; 1 term is about taxonomic relation and 184 terms are instances of technologies. These terms are used to develop KM technologies’ ontology based on facilitating KM processes. This type of ontology that only contains taxonomic relations, called Hyponymy Hierarchy. The presented ontology is created a common understanding in the field of KM technologies. Decision making on the choice of technology and the logic behind these decisions have not been precisely documented and widely shared. Therefore a considerable amount of knowledge is wasted. Considering the importance of sharing knowledge, this study provides the conditions that domain experts can exchange knowledge on a shared platform regardless of geographical constraints. There exists no formal ontology regarding KM technologies. In this study, we try to propose a formal KM technologies’ ontology. Uploading the presented ontology in the web environment provides a platform for knowledge sharing between experts from around the world. In addition, it helps to decide on the choice of KM technologies based on KM processes.