Towards Interoperability: Has theoretical knowledge of Ontologies and Semantics had any impact on Geospatial Applications in GI Science?
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Date
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
IJTD
Abstract
The problem faced by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) today is the lack of interoperability
among the various systems. Scientists do better when they share resources: computing power, data,
tools, models, protocols, and results but making resources available is not the same as making
them useful to others. Thus there is need to share common understanding of the structure of
information among people or software agents, to enable reuse of domain knowledge, to make
domain assumptions explicit and to automatically integrate disparate databases. This research
focuses on how theoretical and conceptual research visions in the field of Ontologies and
Semantics have impacted on spatial applications today. Using scholar search engines such as Web
of Science, Google scholar, Research Gate and GI Science journals, a document review of
ontology publications in GI Science was evaluated. Results showed a growing number in Ontology
and Semantics publications in the geospatial domain since 1991 and that major research efforts
have revolved around creation and management of geo-ontologies, ontology integration, and
matching geographic concepts in web pages. Results further showed that ontologies and semantics
have been used in SDI implementation, spatial databases, OGC web services, VGI, symbol
grounding, semantic similarity, ´big’ Geodata and sensor networks, location based services,
geocoding and so many other applications in the geospatial domain. This shows an evolution in
different methods in representing multiple epistemological perspectives of same spatial events and
entities as well as attaching contextual information in interest of enhancing interoperability across
institutions and geography.
Description
Keywords
GI Science, GIS applications, Interoperability, Ontologies and Semantics
Citation
Mazimwe, A., & Gidudu, A. Towards Interoperability: Has theoretical knowledge of Ontologies and Semantics had any impact on Geospatial Applications in GI Science?.