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Ontology Development and Publishing

The XD methodology was slightly adapted for the Onto-DESIDE project context. Specifically, the XD principle of pair design was modified — rather than requiring ontology engineers to work continuously in pairs, a review-based approach was adopted instead:

  1. An ontology module is created by one ontology engineer
  2. It is then reviewed by another ontology engineer

This approach is in line with code review practices in software engineering, ensuring quality without requiring continuous synchronization.

Development pipeline

flowchart LR
    A[Identify\nRequirements & CQs] --> B[Select\nODPs]
    B --> C[Create Module\nDiagram]
    C --> D[Implement\nin OWL]
    D --> E[Review by\nanother engineer]
    E --> F{Pass?}
    F -- No --> D
    F -- Yes --> G[Publish via\nGitHub]

Ontology Deployment via GitHub

The CEON GitHub repository is the central platform for ontology development, versioning, and publication. The collaborative workflow established during Onto-DESIDE will continue to support future maintenance.

flowchart LR
    A[Create feature\nbranch] --> B[Develop &\ncommit changes]
    B --> C[Open Pull\nRequest]
    C --> D[Review &\ndiscussion]
    D --> E[Merge to\nmain branch]
    E --> F[Auto-deploy\nvia GitHub Actions]

Key practices:

  • Branching — development happens on feature branches, keeping main stable
  • Commit messages — clear, descriptive messages document the history of progress
  • Pull Requests — formal proposals to merge changes, including summaries, diffs, and links to related issues
  • Issues — used to track bugs, tasks, and feature requests
  • Releases — new versions published using GitHub's release tools

Full developer guidelines are in the CEON README.

Versioning and publishing

The development of the ontology network entailed multiple interdependent ontologies, several of which went through multiple development iterations. To manage this:

  • A GitHub repository is used for versioning and creating new releases
  • The w3id service provides permanent identifiers under a common namespace at http://w3id.org/CEON/