development process using ontology integration method. However, the chosen ontologies must
be similar to the library’s actual classification in terms of publication and discipline in order to
minimize the degree of modification. For example, the concept publication and its subclasses in
the ontology of University A are more appropriate than those defined in Publisher XYZ as the
subclass thesis; book, journal and proceeding defined in the ontology of University A are very
similar to the actual classification used in the library of University D. Based on the criteria, the
library reuses only a portion of the two ontologies that include the concept publication and its
subclasses derived from the ontology of the University A as well as the concept discipline and its
subclasses derived from the ontology of Publisher XYZ (see Figure 3). In the ontology
development process, the library of University D can reuse not only the ontologies of other
organizations; it also has the inter-organizational knowledge associated with the instance of the
integrated ontology. As illustrated in Figure 3, the softcopy of the thesis described by the
instance of the integrated ontology, thesis “Turning User into First Level Support in Help Desk:
Development of a Web-based User Self-help KM System” in discipline IS, can be captured from
the knowledge base of the University A and stored in the knowledge base of University D. This
integrated ontology created by the library of the University D has resulted in additional function.
By establishing dedicated mappings between the integrated ontology and its ontology providers
(that is, the ontologies of University A and Publisher XYZ), the associated publication captured
in the knowledge base of University D can be automatically updated as long as there is an
revised version generated from the ontology providers. In this case, when the thesis “Turning
User into First Level Support in Help Desk: Development of a Web-based User Self-help KM
System” has undergone a minor revision in the knowledge evaluation process, the revised thesis
will not only be stored in the knowledge base of University A, it will also be broadcasted to other
KMS through the dedicated mappings that includes the knowledge base of University D. To
allow general user to retrieve and use inter-organizational knowledge, organizations are required
to establish mappings between its own ontology and ontologies of other organizations in this
network. As shown in Figure 4, each broken line represents a mapping between a pair of
concepts or properties that belong to two different ontologies. Making use of string-based and
linguistic resources matching techniques, two similar concepts from the ontologies of University
A and Publisher XYZ are mapped with each other. For instance, two identical concepts (such as
journal) and two properties that are synonyms (such as section and chapter) from the ontologies
of University A and Publisher XYZ are mapped together.