A Web-based User Interaction Framework for Collaboratively Building and Validating Ontologies

Collaborative ontology building requires innovative navigational instruments that improve content exploration and the creation of shared meaning. Building upon an existing architecture for automated ontology learning from unstructured textual resources developed by the authors, this paper presents a Web-based user interaction framework encompassing three major components: (i) real-time visualizations of ontology evolution with time interval and confidence sliders, (ii) traditional ontology editing environments, and (iii) multi-player online games leveraging social networking platforms in the tradition of games with a purpose. A prototype in the environmental domain will showcase the integration of powerful search capabilities with novel graph-based interfaces for guiding novice and expert users alike.