Engineering Ontologies with Patterns - The eXtreme Design Methodology

When using Ontology Design Patterns (ODPs) for modelling new parts of an ontology, i.e., new ontology modules, or even an entire ontology from scratch, ODPs can be used both as inspiration for different modelling solutions, as well as concrete templates or even “building blocks” reused directly in the new solution. This chapter discusses how ODPs, and in particular Content ODPs, can be used in ontology engineering. In particular, a specific ontology engineering methodology is presented, which was originally developed for supporting ODP use. However, this methodology, the eXtreme Design (XD), also has some characteristics that set it apart from most other ontology engineering methodologies, and which may be interesting to consider regardless of how much emphasis is put on the ODP usage. Towards the end of the chapter some XD use cases are also reported and discussed, as well as lessons learned from applying XD. The chapter is concluded through a summary and discussion about future work