Exploratory study on the syntactic and semantic consistency of terms in project management glossaries to provide recommendations for a project management ontology

Abstract

This paper shows an exploratory study of the syntactic and semantic similarities and discrepancies of the terms of four selected project management glossaries. The main purpose of this study is to provide recommendations on adoptions and adaptations of labels and/or definitions of project management glossary terms to be included in a new or existing project management ontology. As a result, a list of recommended terms for a project management ontology to be built is analyzed. The recommendation of terms will be limited to generic terms that can be located at the core level instead of the domain level in the context of an ontological architecture. In particular, the list of terms will be discussed in light of a previously developed project management ontology that will be updated in future work. Another goal of this work is to evaluate the level of syntactic and semantic consistency and harmonization that currently exists in these glossaries. As a result, it becomes apparent from this early research that many opportunities exist to improve these terminologies for greater consistency, harmonization, and standardization in the field.