OntoSoft: An Ontology for Capturing Scientific Software Metadata

Abstract:

We have developed OntoSoft, an ontology to describe metadata for scientific software. The ontology is designed considering how scientists would approach the reuse and sharing of software. This includes supporting a scientist to: 1) identify software, 2) understand and assess software, 3) execute software, 4) get support for the software, 5) do research with the software, and 6) update the software. The ontology is available in OWL and contains more than fifty terms. We have used OntoSoft to structure the OntoSoft software registry for geosciences, and to develop user interfaces to capture its metadata. OntoSoft is part of the NSF EarthCube initiative and contributes to its vision of scientific knowledge sharing, in this case about scientific software.