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<h1 id="ontology-metadata-recommendations-by-tib">Ontology metadata recommendations by TIB</h1>
<p>Document status: <strong>DRAFT</strong></p>
<p>Modification date: 2025-01-31</p>
<p>Creators and contributors:</p>
<!-- * [Last name, First Name (Affiliation)](https://orcid.org/) -->
<ul>
<li><a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1019-9151">Arndt, Susanne (Technische Informationsbibliothek)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1043-4964">Ganske, Anette (Technische Informationsbibliothek)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2499-7741">Hauschke, Christian (Technische Informationsbibliothek)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1595-3213">Strömert, Philip (Technische Informationsbibliothek)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8280-0487">Vogt, Lars (Technische Informationsbibliothek)</a></li>
</ul>
<p>License: <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0 Deed Attribution 4.0 International</a></p>
<p>Zenodo archive: <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11103071">https://www.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11103071</a></p>
<div style="page-break-after: always;"></div>
<h2 id="table-of-contents">Table of contents</h2>
<ol start="0">
<li><a href="#0-executive-summary">Executive summary</a></li>
<li><a href="#1-ontology-metadata">Why Ontology Metadata?</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#11-how-to-provide-ontology-metadata">1.1 How to provide ontology metadata</a></li>
<li><a href="#12-why-ontology-metadata">1.2 Why ontology metadata?</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#2-how-to-read-this-document">How to read this document</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#21-chapter-structure-and-wording">2.1 Chapter structure and wording</a></li>
<li><a href="#22-metadata-recommendations-and-shacl">2.2 Metadata recommendations and SHACL</a></li>
<li><a href="#23-prefixes-used-in-this-document">2.3 Prefixes used in this document</a></li>
<li><a href="#24-acronyms">2.4 Acronyms</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#3-mandatory-metadata">Mandatory Metadata</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#31-ontology-title">3.1 Ontology title</a></li>
<li><a href="#32-preferred-ontology-prefix-acronym">3.2 Preferred ontology prefix/ acronym</a></li>
<li><a href="#33-ontology-license">3.3 Ontology license</a></li>
<li><a href="#34-ontology-creators">3.4 Ontology creator(s)</a></li>
<li><a href="#35-ontology-version-iri">3.5 Ontology version IRI</a></li>
<li><a href="#36-ontology-creation-date">3.6 Ontology creation date</a></li>
<li><a href="#37-ontology-abstract">3.7 Ontology abstract</a></li>
<li><a href="#38-ontology-issue-tracker">3.8 Ontology issue tracker</a></li>
<li><a href="#39-ontology-documentation">3.9 Ontology documentation</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#4-recommended-metadata">Recommended Metadata</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#41-ontology-contributors">4.1 Ontology contributor(s)</a></li>
<li><a href="#42-ontology-funder">4.2 Ontology funder</a></li>
<li><a href="#43-ontology-funding">4.3 Ontology funding</a></li>
<li><a href="#44-ontology-audience-description">4.4 Ontology audience description</a></li>
<li><a href="#45-ontology-subjects">4.5 Ontology subject(s)</a></li>
<li><a href="#46-ontology-annotation-languages">4.6 Ontology annotation language(s)</a></li>
<li><a href="#47-applied-logical-framework">4.7 Applied logical framework</a></li>
<li><a href="#48-ontology-serialization-file-format">4.8 Ontology serialization/ file format</a></li>
<li><a href="#49-ontology-status">4.9 Ontology status</a></li>
<li><a href="#410-ontology-code-repository">4.10 Ontology code repository</a></li>
<li><a href="#411-ontology-distributions-products">4.11 Ontology distributions/ products</a></li>
<li><a href="#412-application-example">4.12 Application example</a></li>
<li><a href="#413-related-resources">4.13 Related resource(s)</a></li>
<li><a href="#414-citation-suggestion">4.14 Citation suggestion</a></li>
<li><a href="#415-ontology-sources-derived-from">4.15 Ontology sources (derived from)</a></li>
<li><a href="#416-ontology-root-classes">4.16 Ontology root classes</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#5-optional-metadata">Optional Metadata</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#51-ontology-description">5.1 Ontology description</a></li>
<li><a href="#52-alternative-ontology-title">5.2 Alternative ontology title</a></li>
<li><a href="#53-alternative-ontology-prefix-acronym">5.3 Alternative ontology prefix/ acronym</a></li>
<li><a href="#54-related-version-version-history">5.4 Related version/ version history</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#541-prior-ontology-version">5.4.1 Prior ontology version</a></li>
<li><a href="#542-related-ontology-version">5.4.2 Related ontology version</a></li>
<li><a href="#543-compatible-ontology-version">5.4.4 Compatible ontology version</a></li>
<li><a href="#544-incompatible-ontology-version">5.4. Incompatible ontology version</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#55-social-media">5.5 Social media</a></li>
<li><a href="#56-kos-type">5.6 KOS type</a></li>
<li><a href="#57-example-ontology-identifier">5.7 Example ontology identifier</a></li>
<li><a href="#58-ontology-identifier-pattern">5.8 Ontology identifier pattern</a></li>
<li><a href="#59-ontology-homepage">5.9 Ontology homepage</a></li>
<li><a href="#510-ontology-publisher">5.10 Ontology publisher</a></li>
<li><a href="#511-ontology-comments">5.11 Ontology comments</a></li>
<li><a href="#512-example-ontology-class">5.12 Example ontology class</a></li>
<li><a href="#513-ontology-mailing-list">5.13 Ontology mailing list</a></li>
<li><a href="#514-ontology-logo-depiction-related-visualizations">5.14 Ontology logo/ depictions/ related visualization</a></li>
<li><a href="#515-alternative-identifiers-of-the-ontology">5.15 Alternative identifiers of the ontology</a></li>
<li><a href="#516-development-environment">5.16 Development environment</a></li>
<li><a href="#517-alignments-mappings">5.17 Alignments/ mappings</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#5171-aligned-resources">5.17.1 Aligned resources</a></li>
<li><a href="#5172-alignment-files-mapping-files">5.17.2 Alignment files/ mapping files</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#518-competency-questions">5.18 Competency questions</a></li>
<li><a href="#519-applied-methodology">5.19 Applied methodology</a></li>
<li><a href="#520-preferred-ontology-namespace">5.20 Preferred ontology namespace</a></li>
<li><a href="#521-ontology-issue-date">5.21 Ontology issue date</a></li>
<li><a href="#522-modification-date">5.22 Modification date</a></li>
<li><a href="#523-textual-version-information">5.23 Textual version information</a></li>
<li><a href="#524-version-notes">5.24 Version notes</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#6-tabular-overview">Tabular overview - recommendations</a></li>
<li><a href="#7-relations-to-related-work">Relations to related work</a></li>
<li><a href="#8-sources">Sources</a></li>
</ol>
<div style="page-break-after: always;"></div>
<h2 id="0-executive-summary">0. Executive summary</h2>
<p>The number of ontology registries, archives and catalogues has increased over time. There are multiple services that list and also index ontologies. The registry entries of such services usually require the metadata of the ontologies they index, in order to make the ontologies findable and to provide users with general introductory information about the ontologies and their reuse. Registries currently face several problems, though:</p>
<ul>
<li>It is not yet standard procedure to provide rich ontology metadata despite efforts towards increasing the FAIRness of semantic resources <a href="#source1">[1]</a>, <a href="#source2">[2]</a>, in particular legacy ontologies may not be updated with rich metadata.</li>
<li>Metadata may be provided in unstructured form outside of the ontology source which makes their collection difficult.</li>
<li>Different registries may provide structured, open metadata documents for the same ontology which may at some point become incongruous with the source data.</li>
<li>Currently, no standard metadata schema for ontologies exists.</li>
</ul>
<p>In order to avoid these problems, metadata management should be part of the ontology engineering process: The metadata of an ontology should be part of the ontology's code base or the ontology itself. This would make the ontology resp. its code base the single source of truth for its own metadata.</p>
<p>It is therefore mandatory that an ontology provides its own metadata with machine-understandable semantics and established terms from metadata ontologies and controlled vocabularies. The metadata need to be as or even more persistent than the ontology itself. <a href="https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/r1-metadata-richly-described-plurality-accurate-relevant-attributes/" title="FAIR Principles. Principle R1. GO FAIR. URL: <https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/>. Last accessed: 28 April 2023.">Principle R1</a> of the FAIR principles <a href="#source2">[1]</a> furthermore recommends to not just provide metadata that allow the discovery of an ontology (e.g. title, ontology prefix, authors), but to add metadata that richly describe the contents of the ontology and the conditions of its creation and use (cf. <a href="#12-why-ontology-metadata">1.2 Why ontology metadata?</a>).</p>
<p>With this document, <em>TIB - Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology University Library</em> provides a practical guide for metadata management of ontologies. It gives recommendations on required, recommended and optional metadata for ontologies. As there are currently several recommendations available (cf. <a href="#source13">[13]</a>, <a href="#source14">[14]</a>, <a href="#source15">[15]</a>, <a href="#source16">[16]</a>, <a href="#source17">[17]</a>, <a href="#source18">[18]</a>, <a href="#source19">[19]</a>, <a href="#source20">[20]</a>, <a href="#source21">[21]</a>, <a href="#source22">[22]</a>, <a href="#source23">[23]</a>), this guide will provide recommendations on ontology metadata that particularly adress the publishing of ontologies on the <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, we provide shapes for SHACL validators based on these recommendations (cf. <a href="#22-metadata-recommendations-and-shacl">2.2 Metadata recommendations and SHACL</a>).</p>
<h2 id="1-ontology-metadata">1 Ontology metadata</h2>
<h3 id="11-how-to-provide-ontology-metadata">1.1 How to provide ontology metadata?</h3>
<p>Ontology metadata must be provided in a machine-understandable format. We therefore recommend to provide them as a part of the ontology itself: The metadata should be statements about the ontology that use dedicated annotation, object or data properties, to guarantee a good level of granularity and distinguishability of the metadata.</p>
<p>If you provide metadata that are here considered as <em>recommended</em> or <em>optional</em> in a single file, you may add a statement using rdfs:seeAlso to point to that document. Ideally, this document should then be etrievable with a persistent identifier (PID) - e.g. a DOI or a PURL. However, we do not recommend this, especially if that document is not machine-understandable.</p>
<h3 id="12-why-ontology-metadata">1.2 Why ontology metadata?</h3>
<p>Providing rich, machine-understandable metadata for an ontology has many advantages for their users (cf. <a href="#source1">[1]</a>, <a href="#source2">[2]</a>), e.g.:</p>
<ul>
<li>They give a rich description about the ontology including its provenance, scope and purpose.</li>
<li>They allow automatic extraction and indexing of the ontology by different services and reduce the effort of manual curation.</li>
<li>They enable others to reuse the ontology or its terms and apply them for their own purposes.</li>
<li>They indicate the current status of an ontology, distinguishing whether an ontology is still maintained by an active community or whether it is dormant.</li>
<li>They allow referencing other Web resources with persistent identifiers (e.g. resources with identifiers like <a href="https://www.doi.org/" title="DOI Foundation Homepage. URL: https://www.doi.org/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">DOI</a>, <a href="https://ror.org/" title="Research Organization Registry Homepage. URL: https://ror.org/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">ROR</a>, <a href="https://orcid.org/" title="Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCiD) Homepage. URL: https://orcid.org/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">ORCiD</a>, <a href="https://raid.org/" title="RAiD Research Activity Identifier Service. URL: https://raid.org/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">RAiD</a>, etc.).</li>
<li>They allow detailed requests about ontologies on the web.</li>
<li>They enable comparability and automated comparisons of ontologies.</li>
<li>They can be retrieved via APIs and used in many different services.</li>
</ul>
<div style="page-break-after: always;"></div>
<h2 id="2-how-to-read-this-document">2 How to read this document</h2>
<h3 id="21-chapter-structure-and-wording">2.1 Chapter structure and wording</h3>
<p>This guide tries to use clear wording to distinguish absolute requirements (<em>must</em>, <em>required</em>, <em>mandatory</em>) from either recommendations (<em>should</em>, <em>recommended</em>) or optional metadata (<em>may</em>, <em>can</em>, <em>could</em>, <em>optional</em>). The sub-sections will each give</p>
<ul>
<li>a short introduction to the metadatum</li>
<li>recommend a property</li>
<li>recommend controlled vocabularies where appropriate</li>
<li>provide examples in text/turtle serialization</li>
<li>list alternative properties that may also be used to provide the metadatum</li>
<li>specify SHACL validation rules (cf. section <a href="#22-metadata-recommendations-and-shacl">2.2 Metadata recommendations and SHACL</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p>Subproperties to any properties mentioned will not be implied, but explicitly listed in the "alternative properties" part of each section.</p>
<h3 id="22-metadata-recommendations-and-shacl">2.2 Metadata recommendations and SHACL</h3>
<p>This guide is a human-readable specification. In addition, we also provide SHACL specifications of these recommendations that can be/are used for three different purposes.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Data validation <br>
A shape for data validation can be retrieved from <a href="https://www.purl.org/ontologymetadata/shape">https://www.purl.org/ontologymetadata/shape</a> and can be used with SHACL validators to test ontologies for any violations of required metadata by <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a> and to get suggestions for recommended metadata. We recommend the online SHACL validators <a href="https://shacl.org/playground/" title="Holger Knublauch (n/a): SHACL Playground. URL: https://shacl.org/playground/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">SHACL Playground</a>, <a href="https://shacl-playground.zazuko.com/">SHACL Playground by Zazuko</a> or <a href="https://shacl-play.sparna.fr/play/">SHACL Play!</a> for performing evaluations. Turtle or json-ld are common input format. SHACL Play! also allows to use IRIs for shapes and ontologies.<br>
The shape can also be used to evaluate metadata of instances of skos:ConceptScheme. The instances of skos:ConceptScheme need to be declared as instances of owl:Ontology to trigger the shapes (cf. also section <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/#L1170">4.6.2. SKOS Concept Schemes and OWL Ontologies</a> of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/2009/REC-skos-reference-20090818/">SKOS Reference document</a>). A video demonstration of how to use this is given at our GitHub repository: <a href="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c5d6be07-3bfb-44ab-ae65-e3f75b8e883a">https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c5d6be07-3bfb-44ab-ae65-e3f75b8e883a</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Data validation at <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a><br>
The shape at <a href="https://www.purl.org/ontologymetadata/shape4ts">https://www.purl.org/ontologymetadata/shape4ts</a> is applied in the Ontology Suggestion Feature at <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a>. The messages are adapted to the context of use and the particular use case: The person suggesting an ontology is not necessarily involved in its development. On TIB Terminology Service, they will be asked to provide metadata of the ontology if these are not present in the ontology, and if known to the user. These users are not required to provide the meatdata as code. A video demonstration on how this is applied is given at our GitHub repository: <a href="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/847cfd39-0823-4a83-9c8a-0cf3d23d38a7">https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/847cfd39-0823-4a83-9c8a-0cf3d23d38a7</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Data generation <br>
A shape for form generators and code generation can be retrieved from <a href="https://www.purl.org/ontologymetadata/shape4forms">https://www.purl.org/ontologymetadata/shape4forms</a>. It can for example be used with the <a href="https://github.com/ULB-Darmstadt/shacl-form">form generator tool by ULB Darmstadt</a> which has a <a href="https://ulb-darmstadt.github.io/shacl-form/#try-your-own">live demo instance</a>. This shape is not as granular as the one for validation: All constraints are bundled in one shape in order to generate a form, that users can use to enter values. The user input is validated immediately for all criteria and the metadata code is generated. Only the recommended properties will be used to do so: This version of the recommendation does not make use of <code>sh:alternativePath</code> constructs, in order to generate valid RDF code with named properties, not anonymous/ blank nodes. A video demonstration on how to apply this is given at our GitHub repository: <a href="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/55cdf44f-5289-4989-9014-5e670fd73418">https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/55cdf44f-5289-4989-9014-5e670fd73418</a>.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>All three versions of the shape have the target class owl:Ontology, so that they can only be used to validate entities that declare themselves as an instance of owl:Ontology, and also code generated with these shapes, will declare entities as instances of owl:Ontology.</p>
<h3 id="23-prefixes-used-in-this-document">2.3 Prefixes used in this document</h3>
<p>Code examples will usually provide full IRIs of statement subjects and objects. Properties will be presented in prefixed notation. The table provides the prefix definitions:</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>prefix</th>
<th>namespace</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>adms</td>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#">http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>bibo</td>
<td><a href="http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/">http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>dc</td>
<td><a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>dcat</td>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#">http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>dcterms</td>
<td><a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">http://purl.org/dc/terms/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>doap</td>
<td><a href="http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#">http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>foaf</td>
<td><a href="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>idot</td>
<td><a href="http://identifiers.org/idot/">http://identifiers.org/idot/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>mod</td>
<td><a href="https://w3id.org/mod#">https://w3id.org/mod#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>obo</td>
<td><a href="http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/">http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>omv</td>
<td><a href="http://omv.ontoware.org/2005/05/ontology#">http://omv.ontoware.org/2005/05/ontology#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>owl</td>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#">http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>pav</td>
<td><a href="http://purl.org/pav/">http://purl.org/pav/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>premis</td>
<td><a href="http://www.loc.gov/premis/rdf/v3/">http://www.loc.gov/premis/rdf/v3/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>rdf</td>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>rdfs</td>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>sdo</td>
<td><a href="https://schema.org/">https://schema.org/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>sh</td>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/shacl#">http://www.w3.org/ns/shacl#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>vann</td>
<td><a href="http://purl.org/vocab/vann/">http://purl.org/vocab/vann/</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>void</td>
<td><a href="http://rdfs.org/ns/void#">http://rdfs.org/ns/void#</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>xsd</td>
<td><a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#">http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 id="24-acronyms">2.4 Acronyms</h3>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Acronym</th>
<th>Full form</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>DOI</td>
<td>Digital Object Identifier</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>IRI</td>
<td>International Resource Identifier</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PID</td>
<td>Persistent Identifer</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ROR</td>
<td>Research Organization Identifier</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div style="page-break-after: always;"></div>
<h2 id="3-mandatory-metadata">3 Mandatory metadata</h2>
<p>Metadata in this section are mandatory for publishing an ontology at <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a>. Ontologies missing these metadata will not be accepted.</p>
<h3 id="31-ontology-title">3.1 Ontology title</h3>
<p>Ontologies must state their own title. The title will be displayed on <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts">TIB Terminology Service</a>, e.g. on each <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies/bfo">ontology's landing page</a>, in <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/search?q=ontology&page=1&type=ontology">search results</a> or in <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies" title="TIB Terminology Service - Ontologies list. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">ontology lists</a>. The ontology must have at most one title per language. Ontology titles should be tagged for language.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/title">http://purl.org/dc/terms/title</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:title "Some Ontology"@en .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/name">https://schema.org/name</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/headline">https://schema.org/headline</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:datatype rdf:langString</code></li>
<li><code>sh:minCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:uniqueLang true</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="32-preferred-ontology-prefix-acronym">3.2 Preferred ontology prefix/ acronym</h3>
<p>The ontology must declare its preferred, unique prefix or a short acronym. The prefix/ acronym will be used on TIB Terminology Service's <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies" title="TIB Terminology Service - Ontologies list. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">ontology list</a> as a short name for the ontology. It must not contain hyphens or other special characters and should be written in lowercase.</p>
<p>You can check whether an ontology prefix is already in use on services like <a href="https://prefix.cc" title="Prefix.cc. Namespace Lookup for RDF Developers.URL: https://prefix.cc/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">prefix.cc</a> or <a href="https://bioregistry.io/registry/" title="Hoyt, C. T., et al. (2022) The Unifying the identification of biomedical entities with the Bioregistry. Nature Scientific Data, <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01807-3>. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">Bioregistries</a>.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/vocab/vann/preferredNamespacePrefix">http://purl.org/vocab/vann/preferredNamespacePrefix</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
vann:preferredNamespacePrefix "so"^^xsd:string .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://identifiers.org/idot/preferredPrefix">http://identifiers.org/idot/preferredPrefix</a></li>
<li><a href="https://w3id.org/mod#acronym">https://w3id.org/mod#acronym</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:datatype xsd:string</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="33-ontology-license">3.3 Ontology license</h3>
<p>Ontologies must declare their license, referring to their license document via PID. The license text helps others to evaluate how they may reuse the ontology. Only ontologies with an open license will be published on <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a>. Consider, for example, the <a href="https://opendefinition.org/licenses/" title="Open Knowledge (n/a): Open Definition. Defining Open in Open Data, Open Content and Open Knowledge. List of Conformant Licensess. URL: https://opendefinition.org/licenses/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">list of licenses</a> that are conformant with the <a href="https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/" title="Open Knowledge (n/a): Open Definition. Defining Open in Open Data, Open Content and Open Knowledge. URL: https://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">Open Definition</a>.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/license">http://purl.org/dc/terms/license</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/license">https://schema.org/license</a></li>
<li><a href="http://creativecommons.org/ns#license">http://creativecommons.org/ns#license</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dbpedia.org/ontology/license">http://dbpedia.org/ontology/license</a></li>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/licence">http://purl.org/dc/terms/licence</a> (is a mis-spelled variant of <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/license">http://purl.org/dc/terms/license</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li>value must be from defined list of accepted licenses</li>
<li>value must not be from defined list of unaccepted licences</li>
<li><code>sh:maxCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:minCount 1</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="34-ontology-creators">3.4 Ontology creator(s)</h3>
<p>The ontology must list its creators, i.e. the people or institutions who were responsible for its development. It is recommended to refer to a creator with a PID (e.g. <a href="https://orcid.org/" title="Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCiD) Homepage. URL: https://orcid.org/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">ORCiD</a>, <a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page" title="Wikidata. URL: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">Wikidata</a>-ID, or <a href="https://ror.org/" title="Research Organization Registry Homepage. URL: https://ror.org/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">ROR</a>-ID). Plain name strings can be provided in addition for readability. If an ontology is developed by a larger group, it is recommended to give the organization or project identifier as the creator and list individual persons as contributors. If no project or organisation PID is available, the respective name (rdf:langString) will also be accepted.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/creator">http://purl.org/dc/terms/creator</a></p>
<p>Example 1 (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:creator <https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Example 2 (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> dcterms:creator <https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000>.
<https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000> rdf:type foaf:Person ;
foaf:firstName "Max" ;
foaf:lastName "Muster" .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/creator">https://schema.org/creator</a></li>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/pav/createdBy">http://purl.org/pav/createdBy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#wasAttributedTo">http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#wasAttributedTo</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/accountablePerson">https://schema.org/accountablePerson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/author">https://schema.org/author</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:minCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="35-ontology-version-iri">3.5 Ontology version IRI</h3>
<p>Since the PURL of an ontology usually only points to the latest version of an ontology, each ontology must state its version IRI. A version IRI is a persistent identifier for a version of an ontology and is used to reliably retrieve this earlier version of the ontology. We recommended to use <a href="https://semver.org/" title="Tom Preston Werner (n/a): Semantic Versioning 2.0.0. URL: https://semver.org/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">semantic versioning</a> or OBO style date-based versioning <a href="#source3">[3]</a>.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#versionIRI">http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#versionIRI</a></p>
<p>Example 1 (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
owl:versionIRI <https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology/1.0.0> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Example 2 (text/turtle)</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
owl:versionIRI <https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology/2019-12-31> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Example 3 (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/pco.owl> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
owl:versionIRI <http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/pco/releases/2021-05-03/pco.owl> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties: n/a</p>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:maxCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:minCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="36-ontology-creation-date">3.6 Ontology creation date</h3>
<p>The ontology must state the date of its first creation.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/created">http://purl.org/dc/terms/created</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:created "2020-11-19T00:00:00"^^xsd:dateTime.
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/pav/createdOn">http://purl.org/pav/createdOn</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/dateCreated">https://schema.org/dateCreated</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#generatedAtTime">http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#generatedAtTime</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:xone ( [sh:datatype xsd:dateTimeStamp ;] [sh:datatype xsd:dateTime ;] [sh:datatype xsd:date ;] [sh:datatype xsd:gYearMonth ;] [sh:datatype xsd:gYear ;] );</code></li>
<li><code>sh:maxCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:minCount 1</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="37-ontology-abstract">3.7 Ontology abstract</h3>
<p>The ontology must describe its own contents and scope with a few words or sentences in order to inform human users what the ontology tries to accomplish. The abstract is displayed in the <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies" title="TIB Terminology Service - Ontologies list. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service ontology list</a> and on the landing page of each ontology - we therefore recommend to keep it short. You can also provide abstracts in several languages (as an rdf:langString). You may provide only one abstract per language. Each abstract may be up to 500 characters long including spaces. We do not recommend to use markups (html, markdown) in the abstract since these are not supported by <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a>. If you want to include a longer text about the ontology, you should include a description <a href="#51-ontology-description">5.1 Ontology description</a>. For an extensive discussion about further aspects of the ontology (e.g. ontology creation, ontology use, ontology structure, etc.) we recommend the publication of a detailed documentation (cf. <a href="#39-ontology-documentation">3.9 Ontology documentation</a>) or traditional academic article (cf. <a href="#413-related-resources">4.13 Related resources</a>).</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/abstract">http://purl.org/dc/terms/abstract</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:abstract "SomeOntology defines a range of classes and properties which can be applied to do stuff in a particular domain."@en , "SomeOntology definiert eine Reihe von Klassen und Properties, die in einer bestimmten Domäne verwendet werden können, um etwas damit zu tun."@de .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/abstract">https://schema.org/abstract</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:datatype rdf:langString</code></li>
<li><code>sh:maxLength 500</code></li>
<li><code>sh:minCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:uniqueLang true</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="38-ontology-issue-tracker">3.8 Ontology issue tracker</h3>
<p>The ontology must point to the issue tracker of its own development environment so that others may report bugs or suggestions to the developers. Ideally, the development process of an ontology is open and takes place on platforms like GitLab.com that allow for version management with version control software like git.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#bug-database">http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#bug-database</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
doap:bug-database <https://github.com/SomeOrganisation/SomeOntology/issues> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties: n/a</p>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:maxCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:minCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="39-ontology-documentation">3.9 Ontology documentation</h3>
<p>To familiarize interested others with the concepts and scope of your ontology, some kind of documentation must be provided. This is usually an external online document that should be referenced by the ontology via an IRI or more persistently with a PID. A relatively easy way to do this is to use the tool Widoco <a href="#source4">[4]</a>, <a href="#source5">[5]</a>. It generates the documentation from the ontology and a resulting html-document can be published, for example with <a href="https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/" title="GitLab Documentation: GitLab Pages. URL: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/pages/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">GitLab Pages</a>. This auto-generated document can contain customized passages that provide users with a deeper understanding of the ontology. There are, however, other forms of ontology documentations: scientific articles, well-curtated README files in repositories, Wikis etc. Here, we recommend to choose the form which is most easily attainable by your working group or project. Here are some examples for ontology documentation:</p>
<ul>
<li>PROV Ontology: <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/2013/REC-prov-o-20130430/">https://www.w3.org/TR/2013/REC-prov-o-20130430/</a></li>
<li>GND Ontology: <a href="https://d-nb.info/standards/elementset/gnd">https://d-nb.info/standards/elementset/gnd</a></li>
<li>Gene Ontology - Relations: <a href="https://geneontology.org/docs/ontology-relations/">https://geneontology.org/docs/ontology-relations/</a></li>
<li>CHEBI User Manual: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_w-DwBdCCOh1gMeeP6yqGzcnkpbHYOa3AGSODe5epcg/">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_w-DwBdCCOh1gMeeP6yqGzcnkpbHYOa3AGSODe5epcg/</a></li>
<li>CHEBI Developer Manual: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/11G6SmTtQRQYFT7l9h5K0faUHiAaekcLeOweMOOTIpME/">https://docs.google.com/document/d/11G6SmTtQRQYFT7l9h5K0faUHiAaekcLeOweMOOTIpME/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The documentation of an ontology offers a lot of room to describe the ontology and provide detailed information about it to its readers. In fact, you may wonder whether it would be sufficient to provide a well-structured and well-readable text document - containing all the metadata suggested in this guide. Here, our answer is a clear no: Providing the metadata of your ontology in a machine-readable format, makes them much more re-usable (cf. sections <a href="#0-executive-summary">0. Executive summary</a> and <a href="#12-why-ontology-metadata">1.2 Why ontology metadata</a>).</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://www.loc.gov/premis/rdf/v3/documentation">http://www.loc.gov/premis/rdf/v3/documentation</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
premis:documentation <https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology/Documentation> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties: n/a</p>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:maxCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:minCount 1</code></li>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
</ul>
<div style="page-break-after: always;"></div>
<h2 id="4-recommended-metadata">4 Recommended Metadata</h2>
<p>In addition to mandatory metadata, we recommend providing a number of further helpful metadata.</p>
<h3 id="41-ontology-contributors">4.1 Ontology contributor(s)</h3>
<p>If you had help in developing the ontology, you should indicate this by listing contributors so that all participants receive proper credit for their efforts. If an ontology is developed by a larger group, it is recommended to give the organization or project identifier as the creator and list individual persons as contributors. Persons and organisations shpuld be listed via PID, e.g. ORCiD or ROR.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/contributor">http://purl.org/dc/terms/contributor</a></p>
<p>Example 1 (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:contributor <https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Example 2 (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:contributor <https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000>.
<https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000> rdf:type foaf:Person ;
foaf:firstName "Max" ;
foaf:lastName "Muster" .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/contributor">http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/contributor</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/contributor">https://schema.org/contributor</a></li>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/pav/contributedBy">http://purl.org/pav/contributedBy</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="42-ontology-funder">4.2 Ontology funder</h3>
<p>The development of an ontology may rely on external funding and take place in a third-party funding project. Since funding institutions usually want to be credited, we highly recommend mentioning them in your ontology. The best way to do so is by referring to their <a href="https://ror.org/" title="Research Organization Registry Homepage. URL: https://ror.org/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">ROR ID</a>.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="https://schema.org/funder">https://schema.org/funder</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
sdo:funder <https://ror.org/018mejw64> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://rdf-vocabulary.ddialliance.org/discovery#fundedBy">http://rdf-vocabulary.ddialliance.org/discovery#fundedBy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/fundedBy">http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/fundedBy</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="43-ontology-funding">4.3 Ontology funding</h3>
<p>In addition to referencing the funding institution, you may be required to point to the specifc grant that enables the work on the ontology. We recommend to provide this information as an IRI, ideally a PID. We are aware, though, that PIDs for grants are not common, yet. We therefore also accept this information in the form of acknowledgement statements (rdf:langString) containing the grant number provided by the funding institution.</p>
<!-- später auf funding IDs eingehen, siehe Wiki: PIDs für Projekte, Grants, Awards (https://wiki.tib.eu/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=303800663) -->
<p>Recommended property: <a href="https://schema.org/funding">https://schema.org/funding</a></p>
<p>Example 1 (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
sdo:funding <https://doi.org/00.00000/000000000> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Example 2 (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
sdo:funding "The authors (Some Ontology Workgroup) would like to thank the Government of Some Country or Some Other Funding Institution for their funding and support within Some Funding Program (project number 123456789)."@en .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties: n/a</p>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="44-ontology-audience-description">4.4 Ontology audience description</h3>
<p>Defining the target group of your ontology might be useful information for others when evaluating if and how they could reuse your ontology. You should describe the intended audience of the ontology. The audience description should be a short, language-tagged text.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#audience">http://usefulinc.com/ns/doap#audience</a></p>
<p>Examples (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
doap:audience "This ontology is intended for researchers in derivational morphology, a branch of linguistics. [...]"@en .
</div></code></pre>
<p>See also <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies/nmrc" title="Audience description of NMRC at TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies/nmrc. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">audience description of NMRC at TIB Terminology Service</a> or the <a href="https://agroportal.lirmm.fr/ontologies/CROPUSAGE" title="Audience description of Cropusage at AgroPortal. URL: https://agroportal.lirmm.fr/ontologies/CROPUSAGE. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">audience description of CROPUSAGE at AgroPortal</a>.</p>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/audience">https://schema.org/audience</a></li>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/audience">http://purl.org/dc/terms/audience</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:datatype rdf:langString</code></li>
<li><code>sh:maxCount 1</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="45-ontology-subjects">4.5 Ontology subject(s)</h3>
<p>We recommend tagging the ontology with a subject from a controlled vocabulary to indicate which domain it belongs to or which subject it deals with. This information is helpful for terminology service and ontology registry providers: Subject tags from controlled vocabularies can be mapped to other controlled vocabularies that are the basis of filters and browsing functionalities of such services. Subject tags can help to make your ontology better findable and available for a wider audience.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/subject">http://purl.org/dc/terms/subject</a></p>
<p>Recommended controlled vocabularies:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://purl.org/linsearch">https://purl.org/linsearch</a></li>
<li><a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies/bk">https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies/bk</a></li>
<li><a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies/dfgfo">https://terminology.tib.eu/ts/ontologies/dfgfo</a></li>
<li><a href="https://explore.gnd.network/">https://explore.gnd.network/</a> (remember: the identifiers need to start with <a href="http://d-nb.info/gnd/">http://d-nb.info/gnd/</a>!)</li>
</ul>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:subject <https://d-nb.info/gnd/4067537-3>, <https://d-nb.info/gnd/4070177-3>, <http://uri.gbv.de/terminology/bk/42.15>, <https://github.com/tibonto/dfgfo/201-03>.
</div></code></pre>
<p>The <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a> applies <a href="https://purl.org/linsearch" title="Technische Informationsbibliothek: Fachsystematik LinSearch. URL: https://purl.org/linsearch. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">LinSearch</a> labels for subject values, e.g.:</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> dcterms:subject "Chemistry"^^xsd:string .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/IAO_0000136">http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/IAO_0000136</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/about">https://schema.org/about</a></li>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/keywords">https://schema.org/keywords</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword">http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword</a></li>
<li><a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/coverage">http://purl.org/dc/terms/coverage</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="46-ontology-annotation-languages">4.6 Ontology annotation language(s)</h3>
<p>If your ontology does not only provide formal semantics but also multi-lingual annotations for entities, you should provide information about the ontology annotation languages (e.g. for term labels, term definitions, etc.) in its metadata. At least one language should be provided, since at least one set of annotations is expected in a well-documented ontology. You should only claim that the ontology uses an annotation language, if all ontology elements or an extensive part of the ontology is annotated in that language.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/language">http://purl.org/dc/terms/language</a></p>
<p>Recommended controlled vocabulary: <a href="http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2">http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
dcterms:language <http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2/eng>, <http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2/tgl> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://schema.org/inLanguage">https://schema.org/inLanguage</a></li>
</ul>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:nodeKind sh:IRI</code></li>
<li><code>sh:pattern "(^http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2/[a-z]{3}$|^https://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2/[a-z]{3}$)"</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="47-applied-logical-framework">4.7 Applied logical framework</h3>
<p>You should state which logical framework the ontology applies. The information can be given as a text, referring to the Semantic Web Standard (e.g. 'OWL 2') and possibly the OWL profile (e.g. 'OWL 2 EL profile').</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="https://w3id.org/mod#hasFormalityLevel">https://w3id.org/mod#hasFormalityLevel</a></p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
mod:hasFormalityLevel "OWL version 2, EL profile"@en .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties: n/a</p>
<p>SHACL validation rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>sh:datatype rdf:langString</code></li>
<li><code>sh:maxCount 1</code></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="48-ontology-serialization-file-format">4.8 Ontology serialization/ file format</h3>
<p>You should state the ontology's serialization/ file format. The value should be provided as an IRI from the Media Types list of the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) <a href="#source6">[6]</a> or from the W3C resource Unique URIs for File Formats <a href="#source7">[7]</a>.</p>
<p>Recommended property: <a href="https://w3id.org/mod#hasSyntax">https://w3id.org/mod#hasSyntax</a></p>
<p>Recommended controlled vocabularies:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.w3.org/ns/formats">https://www.w3.org/ns/formats</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types">https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types</a></li>
</ul>
<p>In order to publish your ontology on the the <a href="https://terminology.tib.eu/ts" title="TIB Terminology Service. URL: https://terminology.tib.eu/. Last accessed: 22 April 2024.">TIB Terminology Service</a> you must providde the ontology as one of the following media types:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/application/rdf+xml">https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/application/rdf+xml</a> resp. <a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/formats/RDF_XML">http://www.w3.org/ns/formats/RDF_XML</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/turtle">https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/turtle</a> resp. <a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/formats/Turtle">http://www.w3.org/ns/formats/Turtle</a></li>
<li>OBO format (cf. <a href="http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/oboformat/spec.html">http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/oboformat/spec.html</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p>Currently, there is no registered media type for obo format.</p>
<p>Example (text/turtle):</p>
<pre class="hljs"><code><div><https://www.purl.org/SomeOntology> rdf:type owl:Ontology ;
mod:hasSyntax> <http://www.w3.org/ns/formats/Turtle> .
</div></code></pre>
<p>Alternative properties:</p>