Evonne: A Visual Tool for Explaining Reasoning with OWL Ontologies and Supporting Interactive Debugging

J. Méndez; C. Alrabbaa; P. Koopmann; R. Langner; F. Baader; R. Dachselt

doi:10.1111/cgf.14730

Evonne: A Visual Tool for Explaining Reasoning with OWL Ontologies and Supporting Interactive Debugging

J. Méndez, C. Alrabbaa, P. Koopmann, R. Langner, F. Baader, R. Dachselt

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

OWL is a powerful language to formalize terminologies in an ontology. Its main strength lies in its foundation on description logics, allowing systems to automatically deduce implicit information through logical reasoning. However, since ontologies are often complex, understanding the outcome of the reasoning process is not always straightforward. Unlike already existing tools for exploring ontologies, our visualization tool Evonne is tailored towards explaining logical consequences. In addition, it supports the debugging of unwanted consequences and allows for an interactive comparison of the impact of removing statements from the ontology. Our visual approach combines (1) specialized views for the explanation of logical consequences and the structure of the ontology, (2) employing multiple layout modes for iteratively exploring explanations, (3) detailed explanations of specific reasoning steps, (4) cross-view highlighting and colour coding of the visualization components, (5) features for dealing with visual complexity and (6) comparison and exploration of possible fixes to the ontology. We evaluated Evonne in a qualitative study with 16 experts in logics, and their positive feedback confirms the value of our concepts for explaining reasoning and debugging ontologies.

Original language	English
Article number	e14730
Journal	Computer Graphics Forum
Volume	42
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.14730
Publication status	Published - 2023
Externally published	Yes

Funding

We thank Vincent Thiele and Tamara Flemisch for their contributions towards Evonne . This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy: EXC‐2068, 390729961—Cluster of Excellence “Physics of Life” and EXC 2050/1, 390696704—Cluster of Excellence “Centre for Tactile Internet” (CeTI) of TU Dresden, by DFG Grant 389792660 as part of TRR 248—CPEC (see https://perspicuous‐computing.science ), and by the DFG Research Training Group QuantLA, GRK 1763 ( https://lat.inf.tu‐dresden.de/quantla ).

Funders	Funder number
California Postsecondary Education Commission	GRK 1763
Center for Evolutionary and Theoretical Immunology	389792660
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft	390696704, EXC‐2068, 390729961, EXC 2050/1

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AU - Baader, F.

AU - Dachselt, R.

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Evonne: A Visual Tool for Explaining Reasoning with OWL Ontologies and Supporting Interactive Debugging

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