A generic framework for collaborative multi‐perspective ontology acquisition

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a general framework that incorporates collaborative social tagging with a novel ontology scheme conveying multiple perspectives. Design/methodology/approach – This paper proposes a framework where multiple users tag the same object (an image in this case) and an ontology is extended based on these tags while being tolerant of different points of view. Both the tagging and the ontological models are intentionally designed to suit the multi‐perspective environment. The paper develops a method based on a set of rules that determine how to associate new concepts to predefined perspectives (in addition to determining relations to topics or other concepts as typically done in previous research) and how to insert and maintain multiple perspectives. Findings – This case study experiment, with a set of selected annotated images, indicates the soundness of the proposed ontological model. Originality/value – The proposed framework characterises the underlying processes for controlled collaborative development of a multi‐perspective ontology and its application to improve image annotation, searching and browsing. The significance of this research is that it focuses on exploring the impact of creating a constantly evolving ontology based on collaborative tagging. The paper is not aware of any other work that has attempted to devise such an environment and to study its dynamics.