EcoPortal

To address the today’s ecological challenges, it is necessary to use data coming from different disciplines and providers. Discovery and integration of data, especially from the ecological domain, is highly labour-intensive and often ambiguous in semantic terms. To improve the location, interpretation and integration of data based on its inherent meaning vocabularies can help in harmonizing and enriching descriptions of data, providing a formal mechanism for the definition of terms and their relationships. To satisfy these emerging needs LifeWatch ERIC developed a Semantic Resources Catalogue (EcoPortal) focused on the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research. This effort will help to support the community in the management and integration/alignment of their semantics and subsequently also of their data. The main goal of the EcoPortal initiative is to provide a unique platform for vocabularies in the ecological and domain for different kinds of stakeholders.

Date ( Publication): 2020

Date ( Revision): 2022

Status: Completed

Point of contact

Research Institute on Terrestrial Ecosystems - National Research Council - Ilaria Rosati

Point of contact

LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre - Lucia Vaira

Keywords: semantics

Keywords: data management

Keywords: ecology

Keywords: thesaurus

Keywords: metadata

Keywords: controlled vocabulary

Keywords: gazetter

Keywords: editing tool

Keywords: mapping

Keywords: alignment

Keywords: annotation

Keywords: Digital Object Identifier

Keywords: SKOS

Keywords: OWL

Keywords: RDF

Keywords: SPARQL

Keywords: JSON

Access constraints: Copyright

Other constraints: LifeWatch ERIC

Use limitation: Open access

OnLine resource: Link to the service (
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
)

Operation name: Browser

Web site: https://ecoportal.lifewatch.eu/ontologies

Description: The Browser tool allows to search semantic resources. There are two options:

- go through the list and select the semantic resource to see more detailed information;

- start typing the semantic resource name or abbreviation in the “Search…” field.

Function: Search semantic resources

Operation name: Search

Web site: https://ecoportal.lifewatch.eu/search

Description: The Search tool allows to find a term across semantic resources by entering free text in the “Search…” field and clicking on the “Search” button.

Function: Find a term across semantic resources

Operation name: Publish

Web site: https://ecoportal.lifewatch.eu/login?redirect=/ontologies/new

Description: The Publish tool allows to publish a new semantic resource. Login is required for the publication

Function: Publish a new semantic resource

Operation name: Annotator

Web site: https://ecoportal.lifewatch.eu/annotator

Description: The Annotator tool allows to generate annotations by entering or pasting free text in the box and clicking on the “Get Annotations” button.

Function: Generate annotations

Operation name: Mappings

Web site: https://ecoportal.lifewatch.eu/mappings

Description: The Mappings tool allows to associate two or more terms in different semantic resources. This association typically, but not always, represents a degree of similarity between the terms.

Function: Associate two or more terms in different semantic resources

Operation name: Recommender

Web site: https://ecoportal.lifewatch.eu/recommender

Description: The Recommender tool allows to get recommendations for the most relevant semantic resources based on an excerpt from a ecological text or a list of keywords.

Function: Get recommendations for the most relevant semantic resources

Operation name: Vocbench

Web site: https://vocbench.lifewatchitaly.eu/vocbench3/#/Home

Description: The Vocbench tool allows to manage OWL ontologies, SKOS(/XL) thesauri, Ontolex-lemon lexicons and generic RDF datasets. It is a web-based, multilingual, collaborative development platform, designed to meet the needs of semantic web and linked data environments.

EcoPortal uses Vocbench as an editor for its resources with a customised version (v.8.0.2-beta.0).

Function: Manage OWL ontologies, SKOS(/XL) thesauri, Ontolex-lemon lexicons and generic RDF datasets

Service Category: data discovery

Service Category: data management

Service Category: data annotation

Service Category: data access

Service Category: data processing

Service Category: data classification

Service Language: eng

Service TRL: TRL 9 – Actual system proven in operational environment

Service Funding: The second release of EcoPortal has been funded by the LifeWatchPLUS project, a PNO-IR project, designed to optimise the national biodiversity and ecosystem research community’s involvement within LifeWatch Italy, reinforce the National Distributed Institute on Biodiversity Research, the heart of the Italian node of the infrastructure, and so to increase in both quantitative and qualitative terms the Italian contribution within LifeWatch ERIC.