ONTOLOGY-BASED APPROACH FOR RESOLVING SEMANTIC SCHEMA CONFLICTS IN THE INTEGRATION OF WEB DATA SOURCES

Abstract

Many information systems and data sources are now accessible through the internet. Each information system on the web is modeled and implemented differently according to the requirements of the application domain. The access, retrieval and utilization of information from the different data sources impose a need for the data to be integrated (web data integration process). Web data integration is a complex process because of the heterogeneity nature of web data. There are many types of heterogeneity and differences among web sources that makes data integration a difficult process (e.g., different data model, different syntax and semantic in schema and data instance level among web sources). Semantic schema heterogeneity, which refers to the misinterpretation of data at the schema level, is one major obstacle that needs to be overcome. Semantic schema heterogeneity has been identified as one of the most important problems when dealing with interoperability and cooperation among multiple data sources on the internet. In this paper, we focus on resolving the problems of semantic schema heterogeneity and recommend an approach and system architecture for semantic schema integration for web data sources. We propose ontology as a solution for the reconciliation of semantic conflicts between web data at the schema level.