Beware of the hierarchy — An analysis of ontology evolution and the materialisation impact for biomedical ontologies

Ontologies are becoming a key component of numerous applications and research fields. But knowledge captured within ontologies is not static. Some ontology updates potentially have a wide ranging impact; others only affect very localised parts of the ontology and their applications. Investigating the impact of the evolution gives us insight into the editing behaviour but also signals ontology engineers and users how the ontology evolution is affecting other applications. However, such research is in its infancy. Hence, we need to investigate the evolution itself and its impact on the simplest of applications: the materialisation.