A systematic literature review of automatic ontology construction

Abstract

In recent years, ontologies have received a lot of attention as a knowledge representation technique. Constructing an ontology can be a difficult task for several reasons: it necessitates time-consuming expert work, the classification task is not as simple as it appears, and the incredible speed with which knowledge evolves in the real world forces ontology engineers to constantly update and enrich the generated ontologies with new concepts, terms, and lexicon. However, there are other ways to automate ontology construction, such as semi-automatically, where human intervention is required in one or more ontology design tasks, and fully automatically, where the entire ontology construction is delegated to a software system. In this paper, we will conduct a systematic review of literature that will focus on a comparative analysis of different techniques relating to both semi-automatic and fully automatic ontology construction using various techniques and automated algorithms applied. In these fields, the goal is to identify the domain areas, current trends, data architectures, and ongoing challenges. This paper will review academic documents published in peer-reviewed venues from 2017 to 2021, based on a four-step selection process of identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion for the selection process. To examine these documents, a systematic review was conducted and six main research questions were answered. The results indicate that automatic ontology construction could give higher complexity, shorter time, and reduce the role of the expert knowledge to evaluate ontology than manual ontology construction. The fields that have been investigated in this survey include online retail, biomedical, public security, information security (IS), Quran, Arabic, Dubai government services, Alzheimer’s disease, agriculture, Chinese tax, job portal, sentiment, and ontology learning. Finally, we summarize the most commonly used methods in automatic ontology construction, which we believe will serve as a foundation for future multidisciplinary research.

Ontological model of the process of intensification of teachers’ competencies

“…At the end of the ontology construction process, its quality must be checked and assessed. This can be achieved by involving domain experts or by quantifying the accuracy and completeness of the ontology [9]. The methodology of ontology development is a set of actions that must be performed when creating an ontology to ensure clarity, consistency, extensibility, reusability, and reliability [21].…”

“…Thus, the methodology of ontology development includes clear stages that provide a systematic and structured approach to the construction of ontologies. After constructing an ontology, it must be checked and evaluated either with the help of domain experts or quantify the accuracy and completeness of the ontology [9].…”

“…Works [7], [8] explore improving the decision-making process using ontologies. Zulkipli et al [9] presents a systematic literature review based on a comparative analysis of various methods and approaches to constructing ontologies.…”

Application of ontology-based engineering and stem approach in learning

“…Once this is done, the ontology is built at the implementation stage with the necessary implementation tool. After building an ontology, it should be checked and evaluated by either involving experts in the subject area or quantifying the accuracy and completeness of the ontology [9]. Improving the quality of teaching schoolchildren can be achieved through the semantic description of knowledge about the subject area using methods of ontological engineering.…”

“…Asim et al [8] proposes a sequence of actions for knowledge acquisition from data and ontology element integration. Zulkipli et al [9] provides a systematic review of the literature, which focuses on a comparative analysis of methods for and approaches to ontology construction. Ontological engineering is the process of designing and developing ontologies.…”