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BME/SIE 477/577 Information Search & Retrieval and Biomedical Ontologies

Creating an Ontology

The following steps, adapted from Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology, provide a general guideline for approaching ontology development.

1. Determine the domain and scope of the ontology.

2. Consider reusing existing ontologies.

3. Enumerate important terms.

4. Define the classes & class hierarchy.

5. Define the properties of classes.

6. Define the facets of the slots.

7. Create instances.

Attribution

Created and maintained by Lynne Frederickson, Informationist, Data Standards and Terminologies

What is an Ontology?

When used in computer and information science, the term ontology refers to relationship-based hierarchical descriptions of concepts within a particular domain, such as biomedicine. Ontologies are used within the semantic web to capture a common language for reuse and reapplication in computer systems, improving efficiency and flexibility between systems, and aiding in natural language processing.

Ontologies are used in the biomedical and health sciences in areas ranging from gene function, as seen in the gene ontology GO, to those used in healthcare informatics such as the International Classification of Diseases, ICD.

Introductory Slides and Videos

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