1. SERONTO A Socio-Ecological Research and Observation Ontology Bert van der Werf Mihai AdamescuMinu Ayromlou Nicolas BertrandJakub Borovec Hugues BoussardConstatin Cazacu Toon van Daele Sabina Datcu Mark Frenzel Volker Hammen Helena KarastiMiklos Kertesz Pirjo KuitunenMandy Lane Juraj LieskovskyBarbara Magagna Johannes PeterseilSue Rennie Herbert SchentzKatharina Schleidt Liisa Tuominen

2. ALTER-Net A Long Term Biodiversity, Ecosystem, and Awareness Research Network funded by the European Union. ALTER- Net addresses major biodiversity issues at a European scale. The network is a partnership of 24 organizations from 17 European countries

3. Work Package I6 A framework for effective information and knowledge management Objective: To construct a framework within which can be built a system to manage biodiversity data, information and knowledge from the Network of Excellence, and to make them available to scientists, policy makers and the public.

4. Biodiversity data Different domains –ecological, meteorological, chemical, geographical, sociological, economic, etc. Different languages –real language differences; scientific language differences Different scaling –Global, regional, site; surveys,... Different purpose –monitoring versus experiments; exploration versus parameter fitting Different storage methods –spreadsheets, databases; local or distributed

5. Purpose of framework data conservation data sharing data quality –provenance (ISO...) –scientific data integration data mining analysis and meta analysis –graphically –advanced techniques workflows

6. Components for analysis Dependent variables –measurements/observations Independent variables –treatments –classifications in stratified sampling –measurements –often time Sources of variation –sampling structure –observer –method –design (blockings) –etc. Measurement scale –distributional assumptions –preferred analysis Assumptions

7. Aspects important for combining data from different sources methods used –relationship between methods units and dimensions –conversion between units the entity of observation/treatment –how to group them –how are they selected

8. Approach for Framework Distributed databases Ontologies –semantics for concepts –hierarchical structure of concepts –relationships/properties –reasoning and restriction logic –mappings and derivation

9. SERONTO Core ontology –observation ontology –units and dimensions ontology Domain ontologies –taxonomy –ecology –chemistry –sociology –etc.

10. Designing the core Repeatability: The ontology should be capable of holding enough meta-data that another person can repeat the experiment or observation at another place and time. Transparency: It must be possible to record and retrieve meta-data describing what actually happened.

11. Core contains: Structures for domain knowledge –Base classes for derivation –Hierarchical reference lists Data and meta data for observations –What, When, Where, Who, How? –What went wrong? Meta data for administration –Project information Units and dimensions Versioning methods

12. Core classes:

13. SERONTO: basic classes

14. basics: example

15. Method Derived classes: Measurement method Treatment method Classification method

16. Method: simple example

17. selection_description

18. Example

19. Other classes: grouping_description: –design (treatment, measurement, layout in field, block’s, etc.) –membership –“group by” functions (mean, variance,...) reference lists –species –other nominal value lists actors: –persons, institutions project etc.

20. Proof of concept Proof of Concept JOKL cultural landscapes JODI vegetation 2835 foodplain Pythia vegetation ECN Summary Database Import OWL Ontology Connect Databases Query SERONTO Results F-Logic / OntoStudio Proof of Concept JOKL cultural landscapes JODI vegetation 2835 foodplain Pythia vegetation ECN Summary Database Import OWL Ontology Connect Databases Query SERONTO Results F-Logic / OntoStudio Proof of Concept JOKL cultural landscapes JODI vegetation 2835 foodplain Pythia vegetation ECN Summary Database Import OWL Ontology Connect Databases SERONTO Results

21. http://www5.umweltbundesamt.at/ALTERNet/ index.php?title=Main_Page