Glossary

The words OntoBoard's menus, dialogs and docs use, in plain terms. You do not need any of them to start - the guide uses each one only when it gets to it.

The project

Project, project folder

A folder that holds an ontology together with everything around it: its tests, the terms it imports, its releases. Project → New ODK project... makes one. A single .owl file works on the board without one; builds, tests and releases need it.

Edit file

The file you work in, src/ontology/<id>-edit.owl in a project. Releases are copies made from it; you never edit those by hand.

ODK (Ontology Development Kit)

A standard way of organising an ontology project - the folder layout, the build, the release - used by many ontologies. It normally runs on the command line inside Docker. OntoBoard uses the same layout and does the same steps from Protégé's menus.

ROBOT

The tool ODK uses to check, convert and extract parts of ontologies. OntoBoard has it built in, so what OntoBoard does with it - the checks under Check and test, importing and exporting terms, templates - runs inside Protégé, with nothing to install.

Build

Checking the ontology: Build and release → Build..., and choose test. It runs the reasoner, the quality report, your tests and the OWL profile check, and lists what is wrong.

ID range

A block of term numbers kept for one editor, so two people never give two terms the same identifier. Needed only in a project whose terms are numbered; Project → ID ranges....

Project configuration (<id>-odk.yaml)

The project's settings file, in ODK's format. Project → Project configuration... edits it.

Releases

Release

A finished version of the ontology that others can use: Build and release → Release.... It is the edit file, reasoned, with its version recorded, kept under releases/<version>/.

Version

The number of a release. With semantic versions, 1.4.0 then 1.5.0 means terms were added; 2.0.0 means something others relied on was removed or changed.

Base IRI

The web address the ontology and its terms are named under, chosen when the project is made - for example https://w3id.org/myont/myont.owl. Every term's address starts with it, so it is hard to change later.

Version IRI

The permanent web address of one release, so anyone can point at exactly that version. For an ontology at https://w3id.org/myont.owl, a semantic version is https://w3id.org/myont/1.4.0 and a dated release, as ODK names them, https://w3id.org/myont/releases/2026-11-01/myont.owl. Release... makes the right one for the scheme you choose.

Obsolete (deprecated)

A term that is retired but kept, marked so that users know to stop using it and what to use instead. Removing a term breaks whoever still refers to it; making it obsolete does not. Obsolete the selected term....

Reusing other ontologies

Import

Using terms from another ontology inside yours. OntoBoard copies only the terms you chose, with what they need, into a small file of your project - an import module.

Import module

That small file, under src/ontology/imports/. Refresh imports... rebuilds it from its source when the source changes.

Term list

The list of terms a module is made from, one per line, next to the module.

Imported terms

OntoBoard → Reuse → Imported terms...: every import and the terms it brings, by label - the ones you chose and the ones that came along because a chosen term needs them. Terms are added and taken out there, and the module is rebuilt at once.

Catalog

A file (catalog-v001.xml) telling Protégé where to find each imported file on disk, so it does not download them.

Mirror

A saved copy of a source ontology, so rebuilding a module does not have to download it again.

BOT, TOP, STAR, MIREOT

Ways of cutting the terms you chose out of a source ontology: with everything above them (BOT, the usual choice), everything below them (TOP), the smallest piece that keeps their meaning (STAR), or just their parents and labels (MIREOT).

Design pattern

A small, tried model of something ontologies often need to say - parts and wholes, roles, prices. Starting from one gives you its terms and its reasoning. Pattern library....

Checking

Reasoner

The program that works out what follows from what you wrote, and finds contradictions. ELK is the one used by default; it is fast and built in.

Quality report

A list of common problems - a term with no label, two definitions for one term - by severity. Part of every build. It is about your own terms: a problem in an imported term belongs to the ontology it comes from, and the build says how many it left out.

Defined class

A class with an equivalence - cheesy pizza ≡ pizza that has a cheese topping - so the reasoner can find its members without anybody saying so. The board marks one with ≡.

OWL profile

A restricted form of OWL some reasoners need. The profile check says whether the ontology stays within one (OWL 2 DL, EL...).

Competency question

A question the ontology must be able to answer, written before modelling - "Which pizzas have a meat topping?". It is how eXtreme Design starts.

Test (SPARQL test)

A competency question turned into a query that lists what breaks a rule, saved under src/sparql/. An empty answer means the test passes. Every build runs them.

eXtreme Design (XD)

A method for building ontologies in small steps: write the questions, pick a design pattern for each, model, test against the questions, release. The guide follows it.

Data

Knowledge graph

The things themselves - this pizzeria, that baker - described with the ontology's terms, in a file of its own that imports the ontology. From spreadsheets to a knowledge graph

ROBOT template

A spreadsheet whose first row is your headings and whose second row says what each column is (ID, TYPE, AL rdfs:label@en, I <property>); every row after that becomes a term or an individual. Spreadsheets → Template....

Sheet editor

Spreadsheets → Sheet editor: the templates of a folder, open for editing inside Protégé, with the problems marked where you type and identifiers generated for new rows.