# Ontology Governance Framework ## Purpose and scope This repository provides the materials developed for the **Ontology Governance Framework (OGF)**, a conceptual and practical approach for defining, organising, and assessing governance practices in ontology projects. The framework is intended to support ontology developers, maintainers, project teams, and organisations in making governance decisions explicit. It provides reusable structures and resources to help define how ontologies are designed, documented, maintained, shared, reviewed, and evolved over time. The framework is composed of four main components: 1. **Governance Mechanisms** 2. **Ontology Lifecycle** 3. **Roles and Responsibilities** 4. **Resources** Together, these components support the definition of governance models adapted to the needs, maturity level, organisational context, and available resources of each ontology project. --- ## 1. Governance Mechanisms Governance mechanisms represent the set of **Principles, Requirements, and Guidelines** that guide decision-making throughout the ontology lifecycle. These mechanisms help define what should be considered when designing, publishing, maintaining, and reusing an ontology. They address aspects such as: - availability and access to ontology resources; - documentation and metadata; - persistent identifiers; - reuse of existing ontologies and vocabularies; - modularity; - representation formats; - adoption and dissemination; - maintenance, versioning, and contribution processes. The governance mechanisms are designed to be adaptable. They can be selected, refined, or extended depending on the objectives, constraints, and governance maturity of a specific ontology project. --- ## 2. Ontology Lifecycle The **Ontology Lifecycle** represents the temporal dimension of the framework. It describes the phases, activities, and tasks involved in the development, publication, use, maintenance, and evolution of an ontology. The lifecycle provides a structured view of how ontology-related activities are organised over time. It can be adapted to different ontology engineering methodologies and project contexts. The lifecycle includes phases such as: - requirements specification; - ontology development; - ontology integration; - ontology use and adoption; - maintenance. This component helps project teams identify when specific governance decisions should be made and how they relate to the different stages of ontology development and management. --- ## 3. Roles and Responsibilities This component defines the **actors** involved in ontology governance and their associated **responsibilities**. It helps clarify who is responsible for making decisions, performing tasks, reviewing outputs, maintaining resources, and supporting communication among stakeholders. Examples of roles include: - ontology engineers; - domain experts; - system developers; - end users; - governance or coordination bodies. The definition of roles and responsibilities supports coordination within ontology projects, reduces ambiguity, and facilitates long-term maintenance. It can also be combined with responsibility assignment models such as RACI matrices. --- ## Included materials This repository includes a set of materials that support the application and adaptation of the Ontology Governance Framework. ### Framework materials The `framework/` folder contains the core components of the Ontology Governance Framework: - governance mechanisms; - ontology lifecycle; - roles and responsibilities. These materials provide the conceptual basis for defining and adapting ontology governance models in different contexts. ### Methodological materials The `methodology/` folder contains the methodological resources used to support the development, application, and evaluation of the framework. These materials may include the supporting documentation and other resources used to collect information, analyse governance initiatives and harmonized them. ### Case studies The repository includes documentation for two anonymised case studies in which the framework has been applied: - **Case Study A** - **Case Study B** Each case study includes materials produced or adapted during the application of the Ontology Governance Framework, such as: * governance mechanisms selected or defined for the case study; * initial questionnaires used to collect information about the governance context; * lifecycle, roles, and resources diagrams; * RACI matrices linking lifecycle activities with roles and responsibilities --- ## Reporting issues Issues can be used to: - report errors or inconsistencies in the framework; - suggest improvements to the governance mechanisms; - propose new roles, lifecycle activities, or resources; - discuss the application of the framework in new contexts; - request clarifications or additional documentation. When opening an issue, please include: - a clear and descriptive title; - a short explanation of the problem or suggestion; - the file or section affected, if applicable; - any relevant example or context. --- # Contribution If you wish to contribute to the improvement of the framework, feel free to open an issue or start a discussion in the repository. We welcome feedback and collaboration from the community! --- ## Citation If you use or refer to the Ontology Governance Framework, please cite this repository as follows: ```bibtex @misc{ontology_governance_framework, title = {Ontology Governance Framework}, author = {Sanchez-Gonzalez, Lucia and Poveda-Villalon, Maria and Corcho, Oscar}, year = {2026}, month = may, howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/oeg-upm/Ontology-governance-framework}}, note = {GitHub repository} } ``` --- ## Authors - [Lucía Sánchez González](https://github.com/LuciaSG99) - [María Poveda Villalón](https://github.com/mariapoveda) - [Oscar Corcho](https://github.com/ocorcho) --- ## License This project is licensed under the [Apache License 2.0](https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0).You are free to use, modify, and distribute the contents, provided that proper attribution is maintained and the license terms are respected.