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05 - Ontology (legacy)#

Part 2 - General introduction on ontologies and the OEO -- Under construction!#

How can I contribute to the Open Energy Ontology?#

Development of the Open Energy Ontology (OEO) is a community effort and takes place on GitHub. In the following sections of this course we have bundled information on how to get involved and how to contribute to the OEO.

You can provide feedback to this course on GitHub: https://github.com/OpenEnergyPlatform/academy/issues/167

For whom is this training and what can you learn?#

This course is aimed at researchers, policy makers and any interested person, who

  • want to get an overview and a deeper understanding of the domain of energy system modelling and its underlying concepts,
  • want to annotate their data with controlled terms, enhance its visibility and make it comparable and interoperable with existing data
  • want to develop a powerful open-source tool to enhance data management in the energy domain under the FAIR principles.

After reading the sections of this module, you will know

  • what an ontology is and how the OEO works,
  • what the benefits of contributing to the OEO are,
  • what the different levels of contribution are and
  • what steps you have to fulfill to add new terms and concepts to the OEO.

Where can I get general information on ontologies and the OEO?#

The Open Energy Ontology – Overview:

The Open Energy Ontology – Workshop:

Get a quick overview what an ontology is and what the OEO is all about.

Open Energy Ontology Viewer:

Browse the terms of the OEO and their definitions and view their hierarchical structure.

General introduction to the Open Energy Family:

Learn how the OEO is embedded in the Open Energy Family (OEF).

How to participate in the OEO:

Learn how to get involved and start participating in the OEO.

Why should I contribute to the OEO?#

The OEO provides a controlled vocabulary for the domain of energy system modelling and energy research. Within the Open Energy Family the OEO links the different family members by means of a machine readable and machine actionable terminology. By this it ensures better comparability, interoperability, and reusability of research data on the platform and in the domain. By contributing to the OEO you can help building up a powerful tool for data annotation and comparison within energy research, make your data more visible and increase its impact in your working field.

How do I get started?#

How to participate in the OEO:

Learn how to get involved and start participating to the OEO.

Full Documentation on the OEO

Learn about important topics and conventions when you start working on the OEO.

Git How to:

Git Cheat Sheet:

Protégé Getting Started:

OEO development takes place on GitHub and uses tools like git and protégé. Here you can build up or refresh your knowledge on these tools (external links).

Semantic structure of the OEO:

Get familiar with the logic and semantic structure of the OEO.

Guiding principles for contributions:

Learn about the guiding principles for choosing terms, creating definitions and maintaining the taxonomy of the OEO.

What different ways of contributing to the OEO are there?#

Contribution to the OEO can take place on different levels: You may only want to take part in discussions on topics you are interested in. Or you may want to implement new concepts to the OEO. To switch from discussing terms to implementing them and to get familiar with the process it can be a good idea to start with reviewing pull requests.

How to participate in OEO discussions:

Discussion workflow:

Learn how to become a part of the community, find issues and join discussions about interesting topics.

Review workflow:

Learn how to create a pull request review.

Implementing workflow:

Get to know the steps you have to follow when implementing content e.g. concepts, terms, or their relations to the OEO.

Workflow - overview:

Find out how to take part in discussions and in OEO developer meetings.

How do I add new terms, concepts and relations to the OEO?#

Semantic structure of the OEO:

Semantic structure of the OEO – Workshop:

Get familiar with the logic and semantic structure of the OEO.

Guiding principles for contributions:

Learn about the guiding principles for choosing terms, creating definitions and maintaining the taxonomy of the OEO.

Workflow and checklists - overview:

Get an overview on all the necessary steps for contribution.

Implementing workflow:

Get to know the steps you have to follow when implementing concepts, terms, or their relations to the OEO.

Handling ambiguous terms:

Learn how to deal with ambiguous terms on the OEO.

Where do I get help, if got stuck?#

Tutorials on special topics:

Search for topics, that are not addressed in this capacity building module.

Contact form:

Use the contact form of the Open Energy Platform to get in touch with us.

Supplementary material and further readings#

Introducing the Open Energy Ontology: Enhancing data interpretation and interfacing in energy systems analysis (scientific paper):

Learn about the concepts behind the OEO (external link).

Explore helpful resources on ontologies and the OEO (external links):

  • GitHub's Getting Started page
  • Protégé's user guides
  • BOOKS:
  • Arp, Smith and Spear (2015) Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology
  • Keet (2018), Introduction to Ontology Engineering
  • The classic Manchester tutorial on OWL and Protégé
  • BFO and ontologies tutorial by Barry Smith

About this course#

logo

  • Authors: Ulf Mueller, Mirjam Stappel, Hannah Förster, Christian Winger
  • Copyright: Fraunhofer IEE, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität, Öko-Institut
  • Contact: SIROP@iee.fraunhofer.de. License: CC BY 4.0
  • Attribution: Fraunhofer IEE, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität, Öko-Institut (2023): Contribute to the OEO. Last update: 2025-02-18
  • You can provide feedback to this course on GitHub: https://github.com/OpenEnergyPlatform/academy/issues/167