Ontology (Network) Evaluation

Ontology evaluation refers to the activity of checking the technical quality of an ontology against a frame of reference. As such, it is of core importance for ontology engineering supporting scenarios such as ontology validation, knowledge selection, or the evaluation of knowledge extraction algorithms. In this chapter, we provide methodological guidelines for evaluating stand-alone ontologies as well as ontology networks. Our goal is not only to present the NeOn perspective on this issue but to also provide a practical outlook to the vast area of work in the area of ontology evaluation. Without performing an extensive state-of-the-art analysis of this research field, we aim to illustrate how various evaluation methods developed by the NeOn project, and not only, can be used at different stages of the evaluation process. We conclude the chapter with some concrete examples of performing ontology evaluation.