Ontology, Ontologies and the “I” of FAIR

Abstract

According to the FAIR guiding principles, one of the central attributes for maximizing the added value of information artifacts is interoperability. In this paper, I discuss the importance, and propose a characterization of the notion of Semantic Interoperability. Moreover, I show that a direct consequence of this view is that Semantic Interoperability cannot be achieved without the support of, on one hand, (i) ontologies, as meaning contracts capturing the conceptualizations represented in information artifacts and, on the other hand, of (ii) Ontology, as a discipline proposing formal meth- ods and theories for clarifying these conceptualizations and articulating their representations. In particular, I discuss the fundamental role of formal ontological theories (in the latter sense) to properly ground the construction of representation languages, as well as methodological and computational tools for supporting the engineering of ontologies (in the former sense) in the context of FAIR.

Foundational ontologies, ontology‐driven conceptual modeling, and their multiple benefits to data mining

“…One of the main purposes of foundational ontologies is to facilitate semantic transparency , that is, to make explicit the real‐world semantics of data (Guizzardi, 2020). In general, the main purpose of a conceptual model (including a domain ontology) is to make explicit the ontological commitment made by a given representation artifact (Guarino, Guizzardi, & Mylopoulos, 2019).…”

“…Semantic data integration aims to establish correct semantic relationships between data elements represented in different datasets. This, of course, requires understanding the relation in reality between their referents, that is, the real‐world entities they represent (Guizzardi, 2020).…”

The Need of Industry to Go FAIR

“…There are some efforts to standardize context descriptions, e.g. in the minimal information standards (such as MIAME for gene expression data) [11] but much more is needed.…”

Knowledge graph construction and application in geosciences: A review

“…Most of the principles under those two themes have light to medium relevance to KG. In comparison, Most items under interoperability and reusability can be directly supported by KGs (Mons, 2018;Guizzardi, 2020). The FAIR principles can also be compared to the Five-Star Open Data scheme proposed by Berners-Lee (2009).…”