Summary: In this paper we review issues related with evaluation of ontologies on the Semantic Web. We highlight the problem areas in this field and argue for a greater role and participation of user communities in the evaluation process. We present results from related areas of emergent semantics, classification and ranking, and cataloguing which could be used in a holistic evaluation strategy.

Summary: In this results report we summarize our experiences from running the CROSI Mapping System (CMS) over three test cases for this year's OAEI contest: bibliography, Web directories and medical ontologies alignment case studies. CMS successfully parsed and aligned all input ontologies in all three case studies. We also elaborate on the insights gained and potential research directions towards building more robust alignment systems to cope with the increasing diversity of alignment requirements.

Summary: In this WWW'05 Interoperability of Web-based Educational Systems workshop paper, we review and analyse the benefits of using ontologies for achieving interoperable WBESs. Our arguments for and against using global and/or domain/task ontologies to support this sort of systems are analysed in depth using examples from our past experiences with ontology mapping, merging and deployment in various knowledge management scenarios.

Summary: In October of 2004, the University of Southampton and Hewlett Packard Laboratories at Bristol joined forces to work on a collaborated project, CROSI, in order to investigate semantic integration. The project lasted 12 months and its primary focus was the use of Artificial Intelligence technology, like ontologies, in the Semantic Web environment in order to research issues related to ontology mapping. A number of new insights and emergent issues were identified by using a practical testbed and a thorough evaluation strategy. The project's main deliverables were:

• a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art technologies that address semantic integration;
• engineering artifacts for guiding the potential semantic integration practitioner to develop a semantic integration system: the Semantic Intensity Spectrum (SIS) and a Modular Architecture for developing semantic integration systems;
• an ontology mapping prototype system, CMS (CROSI Mapping System) which acts as a demonstrator of mapping techniques. CROSI also shed light and provided fruitful insights for potential extensions of this technology.

For example, it was proven that combining different matchers gives us a better alignment than using them independently. But, we also identified areas where more research is needed, like for example, practical and re-usable algorithms for aggregating alignment results. The project also had a good visibility record and achieved a decent dissemination across various communities (Web community, Knowledge Engineering community), especially when its short life cycle is taken into account. The highlight was our participation in the annual ontology alignment contest where CMS was ranked in the top three systems for alignment and it was one of the two out of seven participating systems that managed to parse correctly and without a flaw the industrial-strength, sizeable ontologies in the medical informatics domain. In this final project report, we elaborate on the issues mentioned above. This report is also accompanied by a software system and its manual where more technical details regarding the mechanisms used for alignment are explained.