Proceedings

Integration of ontologies
Figure 5. The structure of training ontology
(Source: According to Abel et al., 2004))
The two types of ontology (field and training) are not independent. The description of
field ontology (knowledgeBeanObject) requires some additional references to the
appropriate concepts of training ontology (trainingOntologyObject). For example, if
we need to specify that a document contains knowledge related to concept Indicators
of financial analysis, we only need to link the concept Document (belonging to the
training ontology) with the concept Indicators of financial analysis, belonging to the
field ontology for Economic and Financial Analysis module. The pedagogical
relationships like “prerequisite” or “uses” that occur between concepts of the field
ontology are defined in the training ontology. Figure 6 presents the general framework
of integration between the two ontologies for a training-type e-learning process, with
application in the financial and accounting field - adapting the general model of Abel
(2004).
At the basis of the two integrated ontologies we find the E MemFC concept which
contains:
• all the concepts of the field ontology designated by the Application Concept
class;
• all the concepts of the training ontology designated by the Field Concept
class;
• the KnowledgeBean class which contains all the concepts that belong to a
field ontology; besides, these concepts must be studied in the training
program by all the “trained” students;
• TrainingProperty represents the class of relationships occurring between
concepts.
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