Scaled Scrum Framework for Cooperative Domain Ontology Evolution

The field of research in ontology engineering appears to be mature, considering the vast number of contemporary methods and instruments for the formalization and application of knowledge representation models. However, the evolutionary aspects of ontologies are still little understood and supported. This is especially important in distributed and collaborative settings like the Semantic web, where ontologies naturally co-operate with their user communities. Various organizations and teams are building common ground in this context. Ontology is instrumental in this process through the formal description of shared knowledge. Such semanticity constitutes a sound basis for defining, sharing (business) objectives and interests and eventually developing useful collaborative services and systems. In this "complex" and dynamic environment, a collaborative model for process change requires more powerful methodologies for engineering, argumentation and negotiation. Software Engineering provides teamwork, team management, feedback management, versioning, merging, and evolving software artifacts with a wealth of techniques and tools. Many of these techniques can be used again in an ontology engineering environment. This paper examines how this problem can be resolved using Scrum and Nexus frameworks, which are among the most robust models for software development.