COE:: A collaborative ontology editor based on a peer-to-peer framework

In this paper, we present COE, a peer-to-peer collaborative ontology editor, which supports the creation, editing, sharing, and reuse of ontologies, implemented on top of a general-purpose peer-to-peer framework, COPPEER. In large multi-disciplinary design projects, ontologies can be a critical success factor. Their collaborative creation leads to better understanding and increased information sharing between participants of a project, and economy of resources among projects. A peer-to-peer approach enables new modes of collaboration, while simplifying maintenance by propagating individual updates in shared models. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.