Project Metadata

The Project is the container of an entire OntoUML ontology, and it is where model-wide metadata lives. On top of the element metadata it inherits as a named element — identity (id, created, modified) and descriptive fields (name, description, creators, contributors, and so on) — the Project defines a further set of properties that document the ontology as a whole.

This page organises those project-level properties into four themes with practical guidance. The structural properties type, elements, and root are covered in the Project reference and the Document Structure page; they are omitted here because they describe the model's shape, not its metadata.

Attribution & provenance

Who made the ontology, and what informed it.

Property	Type	Description
publisher	resource or null	The agent responsible for making the project available.
sources	string (uri)[]	Resources that influenced the project (e.g. DOIs).
bibliographicCitations	languageString[]	Bibliographic references for the project.

Use publisher for the organization or person that releases the ontology (as a resource — a name plus URI). Record the material the model draws on in sources (prefer stable, resolvable URIs such as DOIs) and give human-readable citations in bibliographicCitations. Together with the element-level creators and contributors, these properties establish the model's provenance.

Rights & access

Under what terms, and from where, the ontology may be obtained.

Property	Type	Description
license	resource or null	The legal document under which the project is made available.
accessRights	resource[]	Documents describing who may access the project and how.
landingPages	string (uri)[]	Web pages where the project can be accessed.

Always set a license when a model is meant to be shared — a resource pointing at, for example, CC BY 4.0. Use accessRights to describe any access constraints, and landingPages to point at the web pages from which the project is distributed. These properties are what make a model accessible and reusable.

Classification (OCMV vocabularies)

What kind of ontology this is, and what it is for. The recommended values for these properties come from the OntoUML/UFO Catalog Metadata Vocabulary (OCMV).

Property	Type	Description
designedForTasks	resource[]	The goals that motivated the project (e.g. OCMV modeling goals).
contexts	resource[]	The contexts in which the project was developed (e.g. OCMV contexts).
ontologyTypes	resource[]	The project's classification by scope (e.g. OCMV core/domain/application).
representationStyle	resource or null	The representation style — OntoUML style or UFO style.
themes	resource[]	Central themes of the project according to a theme taxonomy.

Draw the values of these properties from OCMV wherever possible — for example ocmv:Research for contexts, ocmv:Domain for ontologyTypes, and ocmv:OntoumlStyle for representationStyle. Using shared vocabulary values (rather than free text) is what makes models comparable and interoperable across the catalog. See the OntoUML Metamodel for the underlying conceptual specification.

Identification & indexing

How the ontology is identified on the web and surfaced to search.

Property	Type	Description
namespace	string (uri) or null	Base URI for the ids of the project's elements.
acronyms	string[]	Acronyms used to refer to the project.
keywords	languageString[]	Keywords describing the domain(s) the project covers.
languages	string[]	IANA language tags for the labels used in the project (e.g. "en", "pt").

The namespace is the cornerstone of the model's FAIR identifiers: appending each element's id to this base URI produces a globally unique, resolvable identifier for that element. Provide acronyms and keywords to make the project findable, and declare the IANA language tags used across the model in languages (e.g. ["en", "pt"]), matching the keys used in the model's languageString values.

This is what makes a model FAIR

Good project metadata is precisely what makes an ontology Findable and Reusable: a declared namespace gives every element a resolvable identifier, keywords/acronyms aid discovery, and license/publisher/sources make reuse safe. See FAIR by design for the full mapping.

Example

A well-described Project metadata block (structural elements and root omitted for brevity):

{
  "type": "Project",
  "id": "project_1",
  "name": { "en": "Person Ontology", "pt-BR": "Ontologia de Pessoa" },
  "created": "2024-09-03",
  "modified": "2024-09-04",
  "alternativeNames": [],
  "description": { "en": "A small reference ontology about people and organizations." },
  "editorialNotes": [],
  "creators": [
    { "name": { "en": "Jane Doe" }, "URI": "https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000" }
  ],
  "contributors": [],
  "publisher": {
    "name": { "en": "Example Ontology Group" },
    "URI": "http://example.org/group"
  },
  "sources": ["https://doi.org/10.1000/example"],
  "bibliographicCitations": [{ "en": "Doe, J. (2024). Person Ontology. Example Press." }],
  "license": {
    "name": { "en": "CC BY 4.0" },
    "URI": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
  },
  "accessRights": [],
  "landingPages": ["http://example.org/person-ontology"],
  "designedForTasks": [
    { "name": { "en": "Conceptual Clarification" }, "URI": "https://w3id.org/ocmv#ConceptualClarification" }
  ],
  "contexts": [
    { "name": { "en": "Research" }, "URI": "https://w3id.org/ocmv#Research" }
  ],
  "ontologyTypes": [
    { "name": { "en": "Domain" }, "URI": "https://w3id.org/ocmv#Domain" }
  ],
  "representationStyle": {
    "name": { "en": "OntoUML Style" },
    "URI": "https://w3id.org/ocmv#OntoumlStyle"
  },
  "themes": [],
  "namespace": "http://example.org/person-ontology#",
  "acronyms": ["PO"],
  "keywords": [{ "en": "person" }, { "en": "organization" }],
  "languages": ["en", "pt-BR"]
}