Formal Ontologies: A Complete Novice's Guide

If you have worked with or managed data, the chances are you have probably at least heard of ‘ontologies’ or some other methods of formal knowledge representation. The concept of ontologies in a philosophical sense could be something that you are more or less comfortable with but they could be something that you find a bit daunting, especially if you don’t know where to begin.

This module is specifically aimed at those who are not yet familiar with ontologies as a means of research data management, and will take you through some of the main features of ontologies, and the reasons for using them.

By the end of this module, participants should be able to: understand what we mean by ‘Data Hetereogeneity’, and how it affects knowledge representation; understand and explain the basic concept of an ontology; and understand and explain how ontologies are used to curate and share research data.