Trend of research on ontology: a study based on ProQuest and DART

Abstract

Ontology is a broad term including a wide range of activities. It plays an important role in semantic web applications. This study is based on published Doctoral ETDs (Electronic Thesis and Dissertations) on ontology retrieved from two major ETD repositories ProQuest and DART. There were overall 2634 theses and dissertations in ProQuest and DART on ontology during last 10 years, from2003-2012. In ProQuest, majority of the theses are contributed by United States. There are theses on ontology in more than 20 variety languages. Regarding the productivity of institutions Tsinghai University is found to be the most productive Research institute involved on ontology research with reference to the ProQuest database. In DART, University of Southampton is the most productive research institute. Keyword analysis shows that the most prominent keywords are Ontology, Metaphysics, Semantic Web, Phenomenology and Artificial Intelligence