Ontology-development languages may allow users to supplement frame-based representations with arbitrary logical sentences. In the case of the Ontolingua ontology library, only 10% of the ontologies have any user-defined axioms. We believe the phrase “writing axioms is difficult” accounts for this phenomenon; domain experts often cannot translate their thoughts into symbolic representation. We attempt to reduce this chasm in communication by identifying groups of axioms that manifest common patterns creating ‘templates’ that allow users to compose axioms by filling-in-the-blanks. We studied axioms in two public ontology libraries, and derived 20 templates that cover 85% of all the user-defined axioms. We describe our methodology for collecting the templates and present sample templates. We also define several properties of templates that will allow users to find an appropriate template quickly. Thus, our research entails a significant simplification in the process for acquiring axioms from domain experts. We believe that this simplification will foster the introduction of axioms and constraints that are currently missing in the ontologies.
