The relation between ontologies and schema-languages: Translating OIL-specifications in XML Schema.

Currently computers are changing from single isolated devices to entry points into a worldwide network of information exchange and business transactions called the World Wide Web (WWW). Therefore support in the exchange of data, information, and knowledge is becoming the key issue in current computer technology. Ontologies provide a shared and common understanding of a domain that can be communicated between people and application systems. Therefore, they may play a major role in supporting information exchange processes in various areas. However, in order to develop their full power, the representation languages for ontologies must be comparable to existing data exchange standards in the World Wide Web. Therefore, we will compare the two main standardization efforts in these areas. We will compare OIL, a proposal for expressing ontologies in the Web, with XML Schema, which is the arising standard for describing the structure and semantics of Web documents.123