Table 1.
Comparison of existing platforms and systems that provide and apply life science ontologies
| OLS | OBO | BioPortal | GOMMA | SAMBO | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Description | Service to query, browse and navigate biomedical ontologies | Collaborative platform having shared principles to govern and coordinate ontology development | System to access and share ontologies that are actively used in biomedical communities | Infrastructure to manage, analyze and match ontologies taking their evolution into account | System for aligning and merging biomedical ontologies |
| Supported ontology formats | OBO | OBO, OWL | OBO, OWL, RDF, RRF, ... | OBO, OWL, RDF, ... (extensible via flexible importers) | OWL |
| Ontology mappings | - | x | x | x | x |
| Versioning support | - (only latest versions are accessible) | x (downloadable versions via CVS repository) | x (access and download of ontology versions) | x (efficient versioning of ontologies in a repository) | - (no explicit ontology versioning possible) |
| Evolution mappings | |||||
| 1) change log | - | x (information about changes via newsletters) | - | - (version comparison to detect changes) | - |
| 2) complex diff | - | - | - | x | - |
| Match support/functionality | - | - | - | x (metadata, external knowledge, instances) | x (metadata, external knowledge, documents, learner) |
| Search, navigation | ontologies | ontologies | ontologies and mappings | ontologies, ontology evolution | - |
| "Special Functionalities" | auto completion, term hierarchies via graphs | discussion lists and wiki to support collaborative development | automatic text annotation | enhanced Diff, annotation migration | merging, user interaction |
| Availability and Access | |||||
| 1) download (ontologies, mappings) | x | x | x | - | - |
| 2) visualization/GUI | x (web application)) | - (infrastructure to share the ontologies) | x (web portal) | x (web application OnEX) | x (desktop GUI) |
| 3) API/web service | x (web service: Ontology QueryService | - | x (web service to access and query available on tologies) | x (query ontology and mapping versions, statistics, diff, match via API) | unknown |
The table provides a comparative overview of platforms that provide and apply life science ontologies. The systems are compared by different characteristics such as versioning support or search/navigation facilities.