Ontology evaluation for reuse in the domain of Process Systems Engineering

• We have developed an algorithm for evaluation of ontologies for reusability.
• The presented algorithm uses ontology metadata to calculate a compatibility metric.
• We have presented a case study from the domain of industrial symbiosis.

Ontologies are a useful tool for knowledge representation, sharing and reuse. Although the number of available ontologies is increasing, the concomitant reuse activities are not following respectively. This is particularly true in the domain of Process Systems Engineering where the ontology development has been proven to be a challenging task and respective reusability is at its infancy. This paper presents a framework for evaluation of ontology for reuse. The proposed framework benefits from information about ontologies, such as terminology and ontology structure, to calculate a compatibility metric of ontology suitability for reuse and hence integration. The framework was demonstrated using a Chemical and Process Engineering case.