Abstract

In this section we give a justification and suggest ways that ontologies can be used to better organize information resources and assist users in retrieving relevant information. Ontologies are contrasted with conventional search methods based on fulltext search, and the relationship between ontologies and thesauri is introduced. Applications of ontology in databases and natural language processing are also introduced. The Searching Problem Everyone knows the Internet has exploded with useful information, but nobody can find what they want, or so goes the claim that has lead to the current interest in the Semantic Web [W3C 2001] and, in particular, the use of ontologies for organizing large collections of knowledge. The agricultural domain is no different from any other in that large repositories of knowledge are being created by thousands of individuals building Web sites around the world. Finding information within a single site can be difficult, whereas searching for information across multiple sites at different institutions, which are probably written in different languages, can be an overwhelming task. Of course, the agricultural domain contains concepts which are unique to agriculture. Ontologies

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