OPAL - Ontology Portal for Astronomy Linked-data
Science clusters
Summary
The OPAL project aims to advance the semantic infrastructure for astronomy by creating an ontology portal, as a centralised repository for vocabularies and ontologies. Astronomy has long benefited from the International Virtual Observatory Alliance - IVOA, which promotes data interoperability within the field. However, these vocabularies remain confined to the IVOA ecosystem, limiting their application in related disciplines, such as heliophysics and planetary sciences. The project, in collaboration with the OntoPortal Alliance, will expand the use of IVOA vocabularies across astronomy and neighbouring fields, enhancing data sharing, reuse, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Challenge
Open Science Service, Main RI concerned, Cross-domain/Cross-RI
The astronomy community is recognised for its Virtual Observatory infrastructure - IVOA, which enables interoperability and, in turn, smooth data sharing and reuse within this ecosystem. A key piece of this interoperability framework is the development and maintenance of vocabularies, as managed by the Semantics Working Group of the IVOA. Thanks to, among others, the EU funded Europlanet and ESCAPE programs, IVOA vocabularies spread to neighbouring disciplines (such as planetary sciences, heliophysics and particle physics). However, these vocabularies are still siloed in the IVOA framework.
Solution
The OPAL project aims to design and set up an ontology portal, asva centralised Semantic Artefact Catalogue (SAC) for astronomy. The project will partner with the OntoPortal Alliance to re-use and customise the OntoPortal SAC technology. An OntoPortal instance offers a rich description of the metadata of the artefacts, and various advanced ontology-based services, such as browsing, searching, visualising, computing metrics, annotating, recommending, assessing FAIRness, as well as receiving community feedback and change requests. OPAL will establish the OntoPortal instance for astronomy, which will collect vocabularies and other "semantic artefacts" (SA) from the areas in the ESCAPE Science Cluster, including the Earth’s near-space environment, the early Universe, space physics, planetary sciences, stars and exoplanets, the interstellar and intergalactic medium, galaxies, compact objects (e.g., pulsars), cosmic rays, cosmology, and particle physics.
Scientific Impact
By collating all the ESCAPE fields vocabularies and ontologies into a single portal, OPAL will enable semantic interoperability across various astronomy databases and applications. It will use common and coordinated FAIR assessment methodologies, and will improve data discoverability through consistent annotations. By enhancing the semantic infrastructure of astronomy, the ontology portal will thus enable researchers to discover and use data more efficiently through standardised vocabulary and ontology resources. The portal’s FAIR-compliant services will improve data discoverability and interoperability across various sub-disciplines within astronomy and related fields, supporting more comprehensive, interdisciplinary research.
Principal investigator
Dr. Clement Jonquet, PhD in Informatics, is senior researcher at INRAE. He has 16 years of experience in ontologies and semantic Web research applied to biomedicine and agronomy. He works on the design and development of ontology repositories as coordinator of the OntoPortal Alliance and he leads AgroPortal ontology repository for agri-food.
Dr. Baptiste Cecconi, PhD in astrophysics, is a senior research scientist, with an astronomer position working at Observatoire de Paris-PSL since 2007. He chairs the IVOA Semantics Working Group.
