Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies

Ontology Engineering 327

investigates how large ontologies can be c omposed of smaller parts, called

modules.

This is a desirable strategy for several reasons. Just as in software engineer-

ing, the increasing size and complexity of the artifacts necessitates strategies

for collaborative and sustainable ontology design. Now, if ontologies are de-

signed as loosely coupled, essentially self-contained systems, this facilitates

diverse typical engineering activities. First, many maintenance tasks can be

done locally by changing just the specific module in question. Next, the

single components resp. modules can be reused in other contexts more eas-

ily.