Ontology Stack for A Policy Wizard

Abstract

An ontology provides a common vocabulary through which to share information in a particular area of knowledge, including the key terms, their semantic interconnections and certain rules of inference. The ACCENT policy-based management system uses a policy description language called APPEL and supports policy document formation through the use of a comprehensive user interface wizard. Through the use of OWL (the Web Ontology Language), the core aspects of APPEL have been captured and defined in an ontology. Assigned the acronym genpol, this ontology describes the policy language independent of any user interface or domain-specific policy information. A further ontology has been developed to define common interface features implemented by the policy wizard [17]. This ontology, referred to as wizpol, directly extends genpol. It provides additional information to the language itself, whilst retaining freedom from any domain-specific policy details. Combined, both genpol and wizpol act as a base for defining further domain-specific ontologies which may describe policy options tailored for a particular application. This report presents a technical overview of both the generic policy language ontology (genpol) and the wizard policy ontology (wizpol), expressed in the form of graphical depictions of OWL classes and properties.