Versioning in distributed semantic registries

ABSTRACT

Change is a constant (not only) in the Semantic Web. Both instance data and ontologies evolve. These changes are a piecemeal process, morphing from version to version both for conceptualizations / ontologies and for the related instance data / individuals. Individual versions capture valuable information about ontologies and instance data that were valid at a given point in time.

In this article we present a design for versioning instance data and outline its particular role in ontology evolution. We describe an implementation strategy for versioning instance data in the Semantic Web in the light of existing approaches working change logs and change definition languages. We show how this strategy is implemented our Topic Map based semantic database Isidorus and is used in pan-European eGovernment applications. We also show how the versioning strategy plays together with a new Atom-based European specification for change propagation of distributed metadata.

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INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
ontology evolution, semantic registries, semantic web, topic maps, versioning