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The advantages of an Ontology-Based Data Management approach: openness, interoperability and data quality

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Abstract

We illustrate the usefulness of an Ontology-Based Data Management (OBDM) approach to develop an open information system, allowing for a deep level of interoperability among different databases, and accounting for additional dimensions of data quality compared to the standard dimensions of the OECD (Quality framework and guidelines for OECD statistical activities, OECD Publishing, Paris, 2011) Quality Framework. Recent advances in engineering in computer science provide promising tools to solve some of the crucial issues in data integration for Research and Innovation.

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Notes

  1. According to OECD (2015), open data are “data that can be used by anyone without technical or legal restrictions. The use encompasses both access and reuse.” OECD (2015, p. 7).

  2. According to OECD (2015), open science refers to “efforts by researchers, governments, research funding agencies or the scientific community itself to make the primary outputs of publicly funded research results—publications and the research data—publicly accessible in digital format with no or minimal restriction as a means for accelerating research; these efforts are in the interest of enhancing transparency and collaboration, and fostering innovation. […] Three main aspects of open science are: open access, open research data, and open collaboration enabled through ICTs. Other aspects of open science—post-publication peer review, open research notebooks, open access to research materials, open source software, citizen science, and research crowdfunding are also part of the architecture of an open science system” (OECD 2015, p. 7).

  3. An automated reasoner based on logic is a software which is able to derive logical consequences from a given set of axioms in an automatic way.

  4. This presentation follows the lines of Calvanese et al. (2011) and Civili et al. (2013).

  5. SPARQL is a semantic query language for databases.

  6. Sapientia 1.0 was closed on the 22nd of December 2014, and was organized in 14 Modules, including around 350 symbols (concepts, relations and attributes). It has been presented at the Workshop of the 20 February 2015 held at Sapienza University of Rome (see Daraio 2015).

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Acknowledgments

The helpful and precious comments and suggestions of Henk F. Moed are warmly acknowledged. Research support from the Award Project 2015 No. C26H15XNFS of the Sapienza university of Rome is gratefully acknowledged.

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Correspondence to Cinzia Daraio.

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Daraio, C., Lenzerini, M., Leporelli, C. et al. The advantages of an Ontology-Based Data Management approach: openness, interoperability and data quality. Scientometrics 108, 441–455 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-1913-6

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