Ontology Model for Indigenous Medicine
Knowledge
Lenny Putri Yulianti
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
Bandung Institute of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia
lennypyulianti@gmail.com
Abstract—Indigenous knowledge has been widely used as a
basis for local decision-making in various sectors and passed
down through generations. Indonesia with its diverse
ecosystems have diverse local knowledge that become potential
to be utilized and developed in knowledge management. One of
the potential indigenous knowledge in Indonesia is indigenous
medicine knowledge. Unfortunately, indigenous knowledge is
established and transmitted in body of knowledge, practices,
and believes that mostly not available in the codified form (tacit
knowledge). Therefore, this study aims to develop conceptual
model as basis knowledge representation so that the indigenous
knowledge can be stated clearly and explicitly in knowledge
management. The result of this research is conceptual model in
ontology representation that has been evaluated for indigenous
medicine knowledge
Keywords—indigenous knowledge, medicine, ontology,
conceptual model
I. INTRODUCTION
Indigenous people which come from the different parts of
the world have used indigenous knowledge to connect and
interact with nature since a very long time. Indigenous
knowledge (IK) is unique to a given culture or society and it
is the basis for local decision making in agriculture,
healthcare, food preparation, education, natural resource
management, and a host of other activities in rural community
system [1]. Moreover, IK has several characteristics which
distinguish it from other types of knowledge based on [2], [3],
[4], and [5].
Indigenous knowledge plays an important role in the needs
of a large proportion of the global population (e.g. in health –
a fact that is increasingly being recognized as relevant for
national health planning and development policy-making) [6].
Based on WHO, the developing countries (e.g. Africa, Asia,
and Latin) use herbal medicine based on indigenous
knowledge as complementary of their medicinal treatment [7].
In many developing countries, the majority of the population
depend on indigenous medicine to meet their primary health
care needs because its affordability, accessibility, and
acceptability [6]. One of the developing countries who
depends on indigenous medicine knowledge is Indonesia.
Generally, Indonesia is known as one of the countries in
Southeast Asia region, which has a very large area, moreover
this area has biodiversity that have many opportunities and
benefits of business [3]. Related to this, local communities in
Indonesia have their own perceptions of the environment,
have their own life arrangements, and maintain their
ecosystems and customs over generations. These perceptions
are stored in people’s memories and activities and are
XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE
Kridanto Surendro
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
Bandung Institute of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia
surendro@gmail.com
expressed in stories, songs, folklore, proverbs, dances, myths,
cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws, local
language and taxonomy, agricultural practices, equipment,
materials, plant species, and animal breeds. The products and
expression of these perceptions are indigenous knowledge
which may include ceremonial, ritual, appearance, artistic
design, language, expression and singing, work, dance, story,
land subsistence, natural remedies, healing processes, and
management activities of environment (such as hunting,
fishing, food gathering, and fire use) [3], [8].
Unfortunately, indigenous knowledge has been
established and transmitted in body of knowledge, practices,
and believes regarding the use of locally available natural
resource, that mostly not available in codified form [2]. This
causes the indigenous knowledge to be incomprehensible and
tends to be blamed by Indonesia people outside the local
community. However, indigenous knowledge in Indonesia is
potential and these potencies have been recognized by other
countries. For example, 14 drugs patented in the United States
come from Indonesian plants, including “tapak dara” for
healing cancer that is obtained from the local knowledge of
Indonesia [8].
To improve this utilization, a clear and explicit indigenous
knowledge representation is required for knowledge
management and ontology become one of the appropriate
basis representation for knowledge management [9].
Ontology is ordinarily a branch of philosophy concerned with
the study of what exists. A commonly quoted definition of
ontology was stated by Gruber [10] as he defined ontology as
a formal and explicit specification of a shared
conceptualization. The concern of ontology representation is
on its conceptual model that can be built in conceptualization
stage. However, there is a little bit of indigenous medicine
conceptual models and ontologies in general which has been
developed by previous researches. Therefore, this study aims
to develop conceptual model in ontology representation in
order to find patterns or concepts of indigenous medicine
knowledge, especially in Indonesia’s tribe.
II. LITERATURE
A. Indigenous Knowledge in Indonesia
Indonesia is a very wide area and has biodiversity [3]. It
is proved by the results of the inventory and naming of the
island conducted by Directorate General of Coastal and Small
Islands of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries in
2010, Indonesia consists of more than 13,487 islands
separated by oceans from 47 very different ecosystems.
Indonesia is also said to possess the second largest
biodiversity in the world, with around 40,000 endemic plant
species including 6,000 medicinal plants [11].
These diverse geographical characteristics and
geographical conditions make the region in Indonesia have
diverse local knowledge potential, especially medicine
knowledge [8]. Indigenous medicine knowledge in
Indonesian is a combination of physical and spiritual aspects
to form a holistic medication. This is heavily influenced by
Indian Ayurveda, Chinese, and Arabian classical medicine
[11].
B. Conceptual Model on IK
Indigenous people in local tribe actually have a
conceptualization about local medicine in their mind where
conceptualization is defined as immaterial entity that only
exists in the mind of the user or a community of users of a
language [12]. It makes this medicine knowledge only can be
understood by local communities who have the knowledge.
However, this indigenous medicine knowledge has great
opportunities to be understood and utilized, namely by
documenting it in a concise, complete, and unambiguous way
[12]. In order to be documented, communicated, and analyzed,
they must be captured, e.g. represented in terms of some
concrete artifact. Moreover, it has now been widely agreed
that the quality of the end-system depends on the quality of
conceptual models [13]. A conceptual model, with respect to
functional quality, should cover all the requirements by
proposing suitable functions, not propose functions out of the
system scope, be consistent, reuse common functions if
possible, and be reliable [13].
C. Ontology-based Conceptual Model
In recent years, an explosion of works related to ontology
has happened in computer science, chiefly motivated by the
growing interest on the Semantic Web, and by the key role
played by them in that initiative. An important point that
should be emphasized is the difference in the sense of the term
used by the information systems, on one side, and artificial
intelligent and semantic web communities on the other [12].
In information systems, the term ontology has been used in
ways that conform to its definition in philosophy. In contrast,
in most of other areas of computer science (the two latter areas
included), the term ontology is, in general, used as a concrete
engineering artifact designed for a specific purpose, and
represented in a specific language.
Fig. 1 Transformation of Data to Knowledge
Fig. 2 Transformation of Data to Knowledge for Indigenous Medicine
Moreover, ontology is useful for unifying knowledge-
based vocabularies and maintaining consistency when
updating corporate memories used in knowledge management
[14]. It needs an explicit and fully documented conceptual
model upon which to formalize the ontology. Furthermore, in
this study, conceptual model is developed using ontology
approach, based on computer science definition, so that it can
be represented in machine readable system easier.
III. METHODOLOGY
Based on [15], the basic building block of knowledge is
data, the processing of data resulting in information, and as a
consequence of processing information, knowledge is derived.
This study illustrated the transformation of data to knowledge
that is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 can be used to describe the transformation process
on indigenous medicine to be indigenous knowledge for
indigenous people. The illustration of transformation of data
to knowledge for indigenous medicine is shown in Fig. 2.
Based on Fig. 2, it can be seen that the research focus on
this study is to represent indigenous medicine knowledge (as
a result from transformation data-information-knowledge) in
conceptual model in order to achieve common understanding
of human and machine.
A. Proposed Methodology
In this study, ontology was developed using
METHONTOLOGY [16] because METHONTOLOGY is the
approach that provides the most accurate descriptions of each
activity. METHONTOLOGY became a guideline to develop
ontology. However, this study simplified three parts of
METHONTOLOGY framework to be a single overview of
ontology development methodology. The simplification of
ontology development methodology that had been developed
in this study were shown in Fig. 3.
Based on Fig. 3, it can be seen that this study only carried
out until the conceptualization stage. This aims to ensure this
study gave a special attention to the quality of the conceptual
model which has been built at the conceptualization stage.
Based on Fig. 3, it also can be seen that this study also
evaluated the conceptual model that has been built. This
evaluation focuses on the functionality of conceptual model.
Based on [17], conceptual model is said to be functionally
 Fig. 3 Proposed Methodology
complete if it represents all the relevant features of the
application domain and covers all the specified requirements.
B. Overview of Ontology Specification
The goal of ontology specification is to produce either an
informal, semi-formal, or formal ontology specification
document written in natural language, using a set of
intermediate representations or using competency questions,
respectively [16]. This stage has been done using
METHONTOLOGY approach [16] that identified three
information be included:
1) The purpose of ontology: As mention before, this study
aims to develop ontology in order to find patterns or concepts
of indigenous medicine knowledge, especially in Indonesia’s
tribe.
2) The scope of ontology: The scope of this ontology is on
local medicine in Indonesia’s tribe. Moreover, the
components focus on this ontology development are in
disease, local medicine, and tribe and origin mapping. From
these mapping, the pattern of medicine selecting is expected
to be founded.
3) Requirements and competency questions: Moreover,
this ontology identified the requirements and competency
questions that should be fulfilled by ontology and conceptual
model. Requirements are analyzed based on problem
identification and purpose of ontology development.
Furthermore, these requirements lead to competency
questions making that is shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4 Requirements and Competency Questions
C. Ontology Acquisition
During specification until conceptualization, this study
collected knowledge for modelling ontology using literature
review approach. The knowledge acquisition for ontology
modelling came from two of the largest and most influential
local medicine knowledge in Asia, i.e. Ayurveda (from India)
and Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM (from China). This
ontology modeling was also inspired from the traditional
medicine concept model from [9].
D. Ontology Conceptualization
In this study, the conceptualization has been done by
integrating the four supporting literatures in order to answer
the requirements and competency questions. The integration
of these literatures was carried out by bringing together the
same and relevant concepts that were related to ontology
specification, combining relationships and interrelationships
between concepts and other concepts, and detailing the
attributes, axioms, and rules related to concepts and
relationships that have been modelled (based on knowledge
gained from four literatures). The description of the process of
forming the ontology conceptual model in this study was
shown in Fig. 3.
Based on Fig. 3, it can be seen that this study collects the
concept and framework of literatures to be grouped and
modeled. All of the terms (include concepts, relations,
attributes, axioms, and rules) were developed based on the
knowledge literatures. Based on Fig. 3, it can also be seen that
this conceptualization was not supposed waterfall approach
because regarding on KAMET II methodology [18],
knowledge modelling involves a dynamic modelling.
Moreover, this process was not sequential and it could return
to any previous process. It aims to maintain the quality of
conceptualized knowledge model.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In detail, regarding on [19], there are 11 tasks that should
be done in conceptualization. However, this study only
focused to explain 2 of 11 tasks, i.e. concept taxonomies and
ad hoc binary relation diagrams tasks. The others are not
explained in this paper because they are just a detail
documentation of concept taxonomies and ad hoc binary
relation diagrams tasks; it can be referred on [20].
A. Concept Taxonomies of Ontology
Concept taxonomies were built to define the concept
hierarchy of ontology. The concept taxonomies in this study
were shown in Fig. 5. Based on Fig. 5, it can be seen that there
were nine main classes or concepts, i.e. Disease, RiskFactor,
 Fig. 5 Concept Taxonomies of Ontology

BodyPart, LocalMedicine, Origin, Element, Method,
MedicineEnergy, and Substance. Moreover, these concepts
were detailed into 30 sub classes. All of main concepts, except
Element and MedicineEnergy, were influenced from
Ayurveda, TCM, and reference [9]. Furthermore, Element and
MedicineEnergy concepts were influenced from Ayurveda
and TCM literatures.
B. Ad Hoc Binary Relation Diagram of Ontology
Ad hoc binary relation diagram is built to establish ad hoc
relationship between concepts of the same (or different)
concept taxonomy [19]. Actually, there were 76 relations that
have been defined in this ontology development. But, the
following diagram (see Fig. 6) only represented relations
between main classes in ontology.
Based on Fig. 6, it can be seen that there were 36 binary
relations connecting main classes in ontology. This diagram
gave a clear conception about how nine main classes in
concept taxonomies mapped. Overall, this conceptual model
became a basis for ontology implementation.
C. Conceptual Model Evaluation
Conceptual model is said to be functionally complete if it
covers all of competency questions on ontology specification.
Moreover, based on [17], conceptual models evaluated using
quality attributes. The evaluation has been done in qualitative
form that is shown in Table 1.

Fig. 6 Ad Hoc Binary Relation Diagram of Ontology

 TABLE I. CONCEPTUAL MODEL EVALUATION
Quality
Evaluation Analysis
Attributes
 CQ 1
It is covered on relation between LocalMedicine
and Disease concepts.
 CQ 2
It is covered on relation between LocalMedicine
and Substance concepts.
 CQ 3
It is covered on Disease concept, its subclass,
and relation between Disease and RiskFactor
concepts.
Completeness  CQ 4
It is covered on relation between Local
Medicine and Method (including Method’s
subclasses) concepts.
 CQ 5
It is covered on relation between Element and
Disease-LocalMedicine concepts, Origin and
Disease-LocalMedicine concepts,
MedicineEnergy and LocalMedicine concepts.
Therefore, this model fulfilled the completeness
quality based on competency questions.
Based on evaluation of completeness quality, it can
be seen that all of concepts and relations that have
Relevancy to been developed in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 are used to
requirements cover competency questions. It means that all of the
concepts and relations in conceptual model are
relevance to competency questions.
This model is feasible to be implemented in formal
Practicability language and furthermore can be used in knowledge
management.
The concept and relation model is described in
natural language that can be understood by user. The
naming in concept and relation has been done in a
Expressiveness
structured and standardized way, i.e. concept name
is in “object” format, and relation name is in active
(has…) and passive (is…) format.
This model is supposed to be reliable and not prone
Reliability to failure because this model is developed based on
three literature models.
Based on Table 1, it can be seen that the conceptual
model that has covered all of the requirements and
competency questions that has been supposed in ontology
specification. It means that the ontology model can be
implemented into semi-formal or formal language in order
to be machine readable.
V. CONCLUSION
Indigenous knowledge (IK), especially indigenous
medicine knowledge, has potency to be utilized in knowledge
management. Unfortunately, most of IK is still not established
in codified form. To improve this utilization, a clear and
explicit indigenous knowledge representation is required for
knowledge management and ontology become one of the
appropriate basis representation. Moreover, ontology needs an
explicit and fully documented conceptual model upon which
to formalize the ontology. In this study, a conceptual model of
indigenous medicine knowledge has been developed using
METHONTOLOGY approach and evaluated using five
quality attributes based on [17]. Therefore, this conceptual
model can be used to formalize the ontology in machine-
readable system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research is supported by Bandung Institute of
Technology.
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