A Tutorial on Modular Ontology Modeling with Ontology Design Patterns: The Cooking Recipes Ontology

We provide a detailed example for modular ontology modeling based on ontology design patterns. It is similar to the Chess Ontology tutorial in [6], which we suggest to read first. We will be less verbose in this tutorial; we provide it because additional examples should be helpful for those interested in adopting the modular ontology modeling methodology - see [6] and the book [2] in which it is contained. We assume that the reader is familiar with the Web Ontology Language OWL [5, 4]. Before we dive into the actual modeling, let us present the general workflow which we recommend for ontology modeling, and which is the same as in [6]. The steps of this workflow are laid out in Figure 1. We will refer to these steps, and explain them in more detail, as we advance through the tutorial. Every ontology is designed for a purpose; this purpose may be defined by a use case, or by a set of use cases, or possibly by a set of potential use cases, which may include the future extensions or refinements of the ontology, and future reuse of the ontology by others. How specific should a use case be? Conventional wisdom may suggest that it is always better to be more specific. However, in the context of ontology modeling the case is not as clear-cut. A very specific use case may give rise to an ontology which is very specialized, i.e. modeling choices (so-called ontological commitments) may be made which fit only the very specific and detailed use case. As a consequence, later modifications, e.g. by widening the scope of the application (and therefore of the underlying ontology) become very cumbersome as they may conflict with ontological commitments made earlier.