Supporting domain ontology through a metamodel: a disaster management case study

Abstract

A metamodel is a model that has the ability to create the languages of many domain models. Domain models are conceptual models of a domain under study and contain all the entities, attributes, relationships, and constraints of the domain. As the artifact of a metamodeling technique, a metamodel could generalize most of the concepts used in existing domain models by unifying the views and structuring the language of the domain. In relation to ontology, the creation of a metamodel could assist in understanding, structuring, and analyzing the ontology. Other than its potential to engineer new ontology and re-engineer existing ontology, a metamodel can also be used to facilitate communication among communities regarding the ontology. The authors present how a metamodel can structure and manage knowledge of a domain it models. Through the Disaster Management Metamodel, they create a language for the disaster management domain.