LOT4KG is methodology for KG lifecycle that extends the LOT ontology engineering methodology with KG construction, ontology evolution and the subsequent KG evolution.
Change Analysis.The goal of this activity is to formally capture the changes that are to be implemented. The output of the Change Conceptualisation is a list of formalised changes. During the change evaluation activity, the formalised changes are evaluated against the ontology, to ensure that the ontology remains consistent and coherent, taking them as input and producing an evaluation report as output . Therefore, this activity requires the list of formalised changes for the evaluation to be executed and outputs an evaluation report.
Recommended Tools (based on the survey):
Ontology Update. In the first sub-activity (Ontology Conceptualization) of ontology update the ontology model is built from the new set of ontological requirements from the previous step. In the next sub-activity (Ontology Encoding), an engineer applies the necessary formalised changes to the ontology, similarly to the ontology encoding sub-activity within the high-level ontology implementation activity. The output of this activity is the code of a new ontology. Then the ontology is evaluated before being published.
Recommended Tools (based on the survey):
Knowledge Graph Implementation. The knowledge graph implementation activity aims to construct and validate the knowledge graph. It is composed by a set of sub-activities that transform the input data, which can be of any type and format (e.g., tabular in CSV, text in PDF, etc.), into the knowledge graph and its later validation over a set of constraints. The output of this activity is the implemented knowledge graph (virtual or materialized) and the associated rules for constructing (e.g., RML, SPARQL-Anything, etc.) and validating it (e.g., ShEx or SHACL shapes). The latter may also include a validation report as output.
Recommended Tools (based on the survey):
Knowledge Graph Publication. The high-level KG publication activity is a counterpart to the ontology publication activity. It captures the necessary tasks and steps which are taken to document and make the KG available online. The output of this activity is the documented KG and the online accessible resource. The lower-level activities part of the KG publication are documentation and data publication. During the documentation step, the mappings, RDF data, SHACL shapes and validation report are used to document the process and output of the implementation. The output is the HTML documentation, which can then be published during the data publication step alongside the online KG.
Recommended Tools (based on the survey):
Knowledge Graph Maintenance. This task is modelled along the same lines as the ontology maintenance task. It is specifically aimed at fixing bugs in the already published KG. This step does not capture proper evolution, the changes within the ontology or the data sources. Therefore, the detailed activity is named bug detection. The output of the activity is the issues and bugs to be fixed by backtracking in the process. The new data requirements task refers to updates in the input data sources that trigger ontology and/or KG update activities.
Recommended Tools (based on the survey):
Change Detection and Impact Analysis Step. To be able to update an already existing KG, the changes applied to the ontology need to be examined and analysed against the KG. We define two sub-activities: detect delta (optional) and assess change impact. The main output of this activity is a list of relevant changes, relevant for the update of the KG.
Recommended Tools (based on the survey):
Knowledge Graph Update. This activity, just as the one for updating the ontology, serves as a mirror to the KG implementation activity. Its purpose is to bring the KG up to date with regards to any types of changes in the ontology or source data. Hence, the KG update activity can be triggered from the change detection activities which provide the list of ontology changes, or from changes to the source data, depicted by the arrow connecting the KG maintenance activity with KG update. The KG update activity has four sub-activities that make it possible to update the KG, each of them associated with the corresponding assets of the KG implementation (mappings, RDF graph, constraints and validation report). The high-level output is the updated RDF graph and its associated assets (i.e. mappings, data constraints, and validation report), which are to be published using the KG publishing activity.
Recommended Tools (based on the survey):
The LOT4KG methodology figures are available for reuse in the LOT Github repository under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.
Watch a video tutorial of the LOT4KG methodology:
The LOT4KG methodology has been validated through a survey. You can explore the survey's raw anonymised data, scripts, and aditional findings:
The following table displays the validation results, it has been ordered by the number of checkmarks per row, from highest to lowest. The top row shows the percentage of coverage for the particular sub-activity in the form of a pie chart. Each of the rows is a response for the survey question (R), for the anonymised survey responses AR was used. The table shows the coverage of each of the LOT4KG subactivities with a checkmark. The survey also collected the list of tools and resources for each sub-activity.
KG | Requirements | Implementation | Publication | Maintenance | Change concept. | Change evaluation | Change encoding | Onto. evaluation | Data preparation | Mapping dev. | Data transf. | Constraints dev. | Data validation | Documentation | Publication | Bug Detection | Detect delta | Assess impact | Mapping update | Data transf. | Constraints update | Data validation | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Activity Coverage |
93.75%
|
93.75%
|
65.63%
|
71.88%
|
77.42%
|
54.84%
|
61.29%
|
48.39%
|
87.10%
|
93.55%
|
74.19%
|
58.06%
|
83.87%
|
77.42%
|
83.87%
|
64.52%
|
16.13%
|
35.48%
|
83.87%
|
67.74%
|
45.16%
|
54.84%
|
|
R6 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R16 | European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R9 | Building Information aGGregation (BIGG)) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R91 | Dimensions | ||||||||||||||||||||||
AR97 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R8 | EDIFACT Ontology | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R93 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R75 | CIDOC-CRM | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R3 | OfficeGraph | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R77 | Odeorupa | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R73 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R11 | Mlsea | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R60 | Simulation Ontology | ||||||||||||||||||||||
AR38 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
AR84 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R61 | Knowledge Hub Ontology | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R31 | Marine Regions | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R5 | Scihyp | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R21 | Cybermapping | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R17 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R15 | Ehri Portal | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R12 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
AR22 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R14 | Polifonia meetups | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R35 | Issa agritrop dataset | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R20 | SWeMLS-KG | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R27 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R18 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
R95 | Katy-kg | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R10 | Deliberation knowledge graph | ||||||||||||||||||||||
R13 |
If you are using the content of LOT4KG methodology you should cite: Pernisch R., Chaves-Fraga D., Stork L., Conde-Herreros D., Poveda-Villalón, M., LOT4KG: A Joint Methodology for the Ontology and Knowledge Graph Lifecycle. Under Review (ISWC2025).