Recommended metadata properties to use in curating OBO ontologies (GO-style)¶
Note that while most of the practices documented here apply to all OBO ontologies this recommendation applies only to ontologies that are developed using GO-style curation workflows.
| Type | Property to use | Required | Number/Limit | Description | Format | Annotation | Reference/Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Label | rdfs:label | Y | Max 1 * | Full name of the term, must be unique. | Free text | None | * some ontologies have multiple labels for different languages, in which case, there should maximum be one label per language |
| Definition | IAO:0000115 | Y | Max 1 | A textual definition of ther term. In most ontologies, must be unique. | Free text | database_cross_reference: reference materials used and contributors (in ORCID ID link format) | See this document for guide on writing definitions |
| Contributor | dcterms:contributor | N (though highly reccomended) | No limit | The ORCID ID of people who contributed to the creation of the term. | ORCID ID (using full link) | None | |
| Synonyms | http://www.geneontology.org/formats/oboInOwl#hasExactSynonym, http://www.geneontology.org/formats/oboInOwl#hasBroadSynonym, http://www.geneontology.org/formats/oboInOwl#hasNarrowSynonym, http://www.geneontology.org/formats/oboInOwl#hasRelatedSynonym | N | No limit | Synonyms of the term. | Free text | database_cross_reference: reference material in which the synonymn is used | See synonyms documentation for guide on using synonyms |
| Comments | rdfs:comment | N | Max 1 | Comments about the term, extended descriptions that might be useful, notes on modelling choices, other misc notes. | Free text | database_cross_reference: reference material relating to the comment | See documentation on comments for more information about comments |
| Editor note | IAO:0000116 | N | Max 1 | A note that is not relevant to front users, but might be to editors | Free text | database_cross_reference: reference material relating to the note | |
| Subset | http://www.geneontology.org/formats/oboInOwl#inSubset | N | No limit | A tag that marks a term as being part of a subset | annotation property that is a subproperty of subset_property (see guide on how to select this) | None | See Slim documentation for more information on subsets |
| Database Cross Reference | http://www.geneontology.org/formats/oboInOwl#hasDbXref | N | No limit | Links out to external references. | string and should* take the form {prefix}:{accession}; see db-xrefs yaml for prefixes | None | *Some ontologies allow full URLS in specific cases, but this is controversial |
| Date created | dcterms:created | N | Max 1 | Date in which the term was created | ISO-8601 format | None | |
| Date last updated | dcterms:date | N | Max 1 | Date in which the term was last updated | ISO-8601 format | None | |
| Deprecation | http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#deprecated | N | Max 1 | A tag that marks a term as being obsolete/deprecated | xsd:boolean (true/false) | None | See obsoletion guide for more details |
| Replaced by | IAO:0100001 | N | Max 1 | Term that has replaced an obsoleted term | IRI/ID (e.g. CL:0000001) | None | See obsoletion guide and merging terms guide for more details |
| Consider | oboInOwl:consider | N | No limit | Term that can be considered from manual replacement of an obsoleted term | IRI/ID (e.g. CL:0000001) | None | See obsoletion guide and merging terms guide for more details |