Congratulations to Dr. Naouel Karam, Robert Lorenz and Prof. Dr. Claudia Müller-Birn! Their Paper, "The GFBio Terminology Service: enabling a research data management beyond data heterogeneity”, have been accepted for publication at the EScience Tage (https://e-science-tage.de/de/startseite). The paper describes the GFBio Terminology Service (GFBio TS) architecture and its usage in the GFBio project context. The provided RESTful API is detailed as well as the set of offered widgets. Current use cases for semantic enhancement of the GFBio components based on the TS are outlined as well as intrinsic challenges.

Abstract:
A primary goal of a research infrastructure for data management should be to enable efficient data discovery and integration of heterogeneous data. The German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio) was envisioned by this goal. The basic component, that enables such interoperability and serves as a backbone for such a platform, is the GFBio Terminology Service (GFBio TS). It acts as a semantic platform for accessing, developing and reasoning over terminological resources within the biological and environmental domain. A RESTful API gives access to these terminological resources in a uniform way regardless of their degree of complexity and whether they are internally stored or externally accessed through their web services. Additionally, a set of widgets with an intrinsic API connection are made available for an easy integration in applications and web interfaces. Based on the requirements of the GFBio partners, we describe the added value that is provided by the GFBio Terminology Service with practical scenarios but also, what challenges we still face. We conclude by describing our current activities and future developments.

Technical report: http://edocs.fu-berlin.de/docs/receive/FUDOCS_document_000000026752