An ontology-based approach to build conceptual data model

Conceptual data model of information system is used to capture the requirement of specific application domain. In this paper we present an approach to build conceptual data model using ontology based on knowledge representation, which can be transformed into explicit specification. Firstly, the formal definitions of ontology and ER model are given and the transformation of ontology to ER model is proposed. Then, the reasoning problem of generated ER model is checked with description logics. On this basis, the execution steps of the proposed method are described.