wfprov Workflow Execution Provenance ontology
The wfprov ontology shows how to express minimal provenance information about the execution of a workflow described using the wf ontology. Here the concern is mainly the provenance which affects the research object, so in particular how some ro:Resource's might have been generated or used by the execution of a wfdesc:Workflow. The main class here is a wfprov:WorkflowRun which shows how wfprov:Artifact instances (the data) wfprov:wasOutputFrom a wfprov:ProcessRun for generated artifacts, or wfprov:usedInput for consumed artifacts. The WorkflowRun is also a ProcessRun, and so the overall inputs and outputs of thw workflow execution can be described in the same manner. These provenance details are linked to the corresponding wfdesc descriptions using wfdesc:describedbyProcess, wfdesc:describedByWorkflow and wfdesc:describedByParameter. This ontology can be further linked to more specific provenance ontologies like OPM-V or W3C PROV-O, but this should be done separately.
This ontology is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
duration in seconds
How long it took to run the workflow (in seconds)
described by parameter
This object property is used to associate a wfprov:Artifact to the wfdesc:Parameter description.
described by process
This object property associate a wfprov:Processrun to its wfdesc:Process description .
described by workflow
This property associates a wfprov:WorkflowRun to its corresponding wfdesc:Workflow description.
interacted with
An Agent the ProcessRun interacted with, for instance to consult, inform or to delegate making a decission. The communication artifacts of this interaction is not normally considered inputs and outputs of the process run, so for instance a wfprov:ProcessRun :receiveEmail which has wfprov:usedInput :anEmail would not be considered wfprov:interactedWith the user who sent the email, although it could be that the overall wfprov:WorkflowRun in this case was considered to be interacting with the user.
used input
This property specifies that a wfprov:ProcessRun used an wfprov:Artifact as an input
was enacted by
wfprov:wasEnactedBy associates a wfprov:ProcessRun with a wfprov:WorkflowEngine, specifying that the execution of the process was enacted by the engine.
was initiated by
The agent who decided to run the workflow, for example "Fred initiated the workflow run". Note that an wfprov:WorkflowEngine starting nested workflows should normally instead be indicated with wfprov:wasEnactedBy, and a nested wfprov:WorkflowRun run as part of a wfprov:WorkflowRun is indicated with wfprov:wasPartOfWorkflowRun.
was output from
This property specifies that a wfprov:Artifact was generated as an output from a wfprov:ProcessRun
was part of workflow run
This property specifies that a wfprov:ProcessRun was executed as part of a wfprov:WorkflowRun. This typically corresponds to wfdesc:hasSubProcess in the workflow description.
An artifact is a data value or item which wfprov:wasOutputFrom of a wfprov:ProcessRun or that the process run used as input (wfprov:usedInput). Such an artifact might also be a ro:Resource if it has been aggregated in the ro:ResearchObject (typically if the artifact was used or generated by a wfprov:WorkflowRun) - but this might always not be the case for intermediate values from wfprov:ProcessRun.
Process Run
A process run is a particular execution of a wfdesc:Process description (wfprov:describedByProcess), which can wfprov:usedInput some wfprov:Artifact instances, and produce new artifacts (wfprov:wasOutputFrom). A wfprov:WorkflowRun is a specialisation of this class.
Workflow Engine
A workflow engine is an foaf:Agent that is responsible for enacting a workflow definition (which could be described in a wfdesc:Workflow). The result of workflow enactment gives rise to a wfprov:WorkflowRun.
Workflow Run
A workflow run is a wfprov:ProcessRun which have been enacted by a wfprov:WorkflowEngine, according to a workflow definition (which could be wfdesc:describedByWorkflow a wfdesc:Workflow). Such a process typically contains several subprocesses (wfprov:wasPartOfWorkflowRun) corresponding to wfdesc:Process descriptions