The Architecture, Design and Justification of an Ontology-Based Business Vocabulary Assistant

This paper presents research into the business integration, software architecture, design and ontology for a business vocabulary assistant (BVA). The proposed application adopts an ontology framework to assist employees across an enterprise with the interpretation of documentation. The type of documentation in question is natural language, unstructured written entities, such as emails, technical specifications and project progress documents. Employees within an enterprise work within divisions and departments which each communicate with a differing vocabulary. Departmental vocabularies develop over time to allow them to communicate efficiently within that department. When different business areas communicate with differing vocabularies and semantics, cross-department communications can become inefficient and frustrating. This research looks at how different business areas can be better integrated by interpreting written documentation.