Cynthia Chandler

The GeoLink Modular Oceanography Ontology

GeoLink is one of the building block projects within EarthCube, a major effort of the National Science Foundation to establish a next-generation knowledge infrastructure for geosciences. As part of this effort, GeoLink aims to improve data retrieval, reuse, and integration of seven geoscience data repositories through the use of ontologies. In this paper, we report on the GeoLink modular ontology, which consists of an interlinked collection of ontology design patterns engineered as the result of a collaborative modeling effort. We explain our design choices, present selected modeling details, and discuss how data integration can be achieved using the patterns while respecting the existing heterogeneity within the participating repositories.

The OceanLink project

Todays scientific investigations are producing large numbers of scholarly products. These products continue to increase in diversity and complexity as researchers recognize that scholarly achievements are not only published articles but also datasets, software, and associated supporting materials. OceanLink is an online platform that addresses scholarly discovery and collaboration in the ocean sciences. The OceanLink project leverages Semantic Web technologies, web mining, and crowdsourcing to identify links between data centers, digital repositories, and professional societies to enhance discovery, enable collaboration, and begin to assess research contribution.

Experiences of a “semantics smackdown”

Within the field of ocean science there is a long history of using controlled vocabularies and other Semantic Web techniques to provide a common and easily exchanged description of datasets. As an activity within the European Union, United States, Australian-funded project “Ocean Data Interoperability Platform”, a workshop took place in June 2014 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to further the use of these Semantic Web techniques with the aim of producing a set Linked Data publication patterns which describe many parts of a marine science dataset. During the workshop, a Semantic Web development methodology was followed which promoted the use of a team with mixed skills (computer, data and marine science experts) to rapidly prototype a model ontology which could be iterated in the future. In this paper we outline the methodology employed in the workshop, and examine both the technical and sociological outcomes of a workshop of this kind.