Basic Formal Ontology

Abbreviation: BFO

General Information

The Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) is a small, upper level ontology that is designed for use in supporting information retrieval, analysis and integration in scientific and other domains. BFO is a genuine upper ontology. Thus it does not contain physical, chemical, biological or other terms which would properly fall within the coverage domains of the special sciences. BFO is used by more than 250 ontology-driven endeavors throughout the world.

Homepage http://basic-formal-ontology.org

Countries that developed this resource United States

Created in 2002

Taxonomic range

All

Knowledge Domains

Subjects

User-defined Tags

General purpose

How to cite this record FAIRsharing.org: BFO; Basic Formal Ontology; DOI: https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.wcpd6f; Last edited: Nov. 28, 2019, 4:30 p.m.; Last accessed: Jan 25 2020 9:11 a.m.

This record is maintained by alanruttenberg ORCID

Record updated: Nov. 27, 2019, 4:12 p.m. by The FAIRsharing Team.

Show edit history

Edits to 'https://fairsharing.org/FAIRsharing.wcpd6f' by 'The FAIRsharing Team' at 16:12, 27 Nov 2019 (approved):

	'supportLinks' has been modified:
		Before:
			forum|https://github.com/bfo-ontology/BFO/issues
			help|https://buffalo.app.box.com/s/u4r7ji8hhnejso7u1aufh3mkeludwngu
			online documentation|http://ifomis.uni-saarland.de/bfo/publications
			online documentation|https://github.com/bfo-ontology/BFO
			online documentation|https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8rDbmRGP6A2bs6tn0AOErQ
			training|http://youtu.be/Yl6_M1sQEAQ
		After:
			forum|https://github.com/bfo-ontology/BFO/issues
			help|https://buffalo.app.box.com/s/u4r7ji8hhnejso7u1aufh3mkeludwngu
			online documentation|https://github.com/bfo-ontology/BFO
			online documentation|https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8rDbmRGP6A2bs6tn0AOErQ
			training|http://youtu.be/Yl6_M1sQEAQ
		Added:
		Removed:
			online documentation|http://ifomis.uni-saarland.de/bfo/publications

Edits to 'https://fairsharing.org/FAIRsharing.wcpd6f' by 'The FAIRsharing Team' at 13:09, 14 Mar 2019 (approved):

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			Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/|Data
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			Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/|Data
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	'supportLinks' has been modified:
		Before:
			online documentation|http://ifomis.uni-saarland.de/bfo/publications
		After:
			forum|https://github.com/bfo-ontology/BFO/issues
			help|https://buffalo.app.box.com/s/u4r7ji8hhnejso7u1aufh3mkeludwngu
			online documentation|http://ifomis.uni-saarland.de/bfo/publications
			online documentation|https://github.com/bfo-ontology/BFO
			online documentation|https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8rDbmRGP6A2bs6tn0AOErQ
			training|http://youtu.be/Yl6_M1sQEAQ
		Added:
			forum|https://github.com/bfo-ontology/BFO/issues
			help|https://buffalo.app.box.com/s/u4r7ji8hhnejso7u1aufh3mkeludwngu
			online documentation|https://github.com/bfo-ontology/BFO
			online documentation|https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8rDbmRGP6A2bs6tn0AOErQ
			training|http://youtu.be/Yl6_M1sQEAQ
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			Building Ontologies With Basic Formal Ontology|Robert Arp, Barry Smith and Andrew Spear|(book) MIT Press|2015
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			Building Ontologies With Basic Formal Ontology|Robert Arp, Barry Smith and Andrew Spear|(book) MIT Press|2015
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			Download (OWL)
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			Download (OWL)
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Edits to 'https://fairsharing.org/FAIRsharing.wcpd6f' by 'alanruttenberg' at 04:09, 18 Jul 2017 (approved):

	'homepage' has been modified:
		Before: http://ifomis.uni-saarland.de/bfo/
		After: http://basic-formal-ontology.org

Edits to 'https://fairsharing.org/FAIRsharing.wcpd6f' by 'The FAIRsharing Team' at 15:46, 12 Jul 2017 (approved):

	'description' has been modified:
		Before: "Basic Formal Ontology" or BFO, grows out of a philosophical orientation which overlaps with that of DOLCE and SUMO. Unlike these, however, it is narrowly focused on the task of providing a genuine upper ontology which can be used in support of domain ontologies developed for scientific research, as for example in biomedicine within the framework of the OBO Foundry. Thus BFO does not contain physical, chemical, biological or other terms which would properly fall within the special sciences domains. 
		After: The Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) is a small, upper level ontology that is designed for use in supporting information retrieval, analysis and integration in scientific and other domains. BFO is a genuine upper ontology. Thus it does not contain physical, chemical, biological or other terms which would properly fall within the coverage domains of the special sciences. BFO is used by more than 250 ontology-driven endeavors throughout the world.

Edits to 'https://fairsharing.org/FAIRsharing.wcpd6f' by 'The FAIRsharing Team' at 19:23, 15 Oct 2016 (approved):

	'description' has been modified:
		Before: "Basic Formal Ontology" or BFO, grows out of a philosophical orientation which overlaps with that of DOLCE and SUMO. Unlike these, however, it is narrowly focused on the task of providing a genuine upper ontology which can be used in support of domain ontologies developed for scientific research, as for example in biomedicine within the framework of the OBO Foundry. Thus BFO does not contain physical, chemical, biological or other terms which would properly fall within the special sciences domains. Until this entry is claimed, more information on this project can be found at http://purl.bioontology.org/ontology/BFO. If you work on the project responsible for "Basic Formal Ontology" then please consider helping us by claiming this record and updating it appropriately.
		After: "Basic Formal Ontology" or BFO, grows out of a philosophical orientation which overlaps with that of DOLCE and SUMO. Unlike these, however, it is narrowly focused on the task of providing a genuine upper ontology which can be used in support of domain ontologies developed for scientific research, as for example in biomedicine within the framework of the OBO Foundry. Thus BFO does not contain physical, chemical, biological or other terms which would properly fall within the special sciences domains.  Domain list has changed:  Previous values: Information retrieval|| New values:  Information retrieval|| General purpose|None| Organisations have changed:  Previous values: BFO administrators New values:  BFO administrators Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) Support links have changed:  Previous values: New values:  http://ifomis.uni-saarland.de/bfo/publications

Support

General

forum	GitHub Issue Tracker
help	Tutorials
online documentation	GitHub Repository
online documentation	BFO YouTube Channel
training	Video Introduction to BFO

Additional Information

Contact

Barry Smith

External Links

Bioportal	http://bioportal.bioontology.org/ontologies/BFO
OBO	http://obofoundry.org/ontology/bfo.html

Tools

No tools defined

Schemas

No XSD schemas defined

Access / Retrieve Data

Conditions of Use

Applies to: Data use

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Data Release

Download (OWL)

http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/bfo.owl

Publications

Building Ontologies With Basic Formal Ontology

Robert Arp, Barry Smith and Andrew Spear
(book) MIT Press 2015

Link to Publication

BFO Ontology Display

View in BioPortal.

Disclaimer: This widget assumes the availability of the ontology resources in the NCBO BioPortal.

View in OBO Foundry.

Related Standards

Reporting Guidelines

No guidelines defined

Terminology Artifacts

Models and Formats

No syntax standards defined

Identifier Schemas

No identifier schema standards defined

Metrics

No metrics standards defined

Implementing Databases (1)

OBO Foundry
The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry is a collective of ontology developers that are committed to collaboration and adherence to shared principles. The mission of the OBO Foundry is to develop a family of interoperable ontologies that are both logically well-formed and scientifically accurate. To achieve this, OBO Foundry participants voluntarily adhere to and contribute to the development of an evolving set of principles including open use, collaborative development, non-overlapping and strictly-scoped content, and common syntax and relations, based on ontology models that work well, such as the Gene Ontology (GO). The OBO Foundry is overseen by an Operations Committee with Editorial, Technical and Outreach working groups.

Implementing Policies

This record is not implemented by any policy.

Credit

Record Maintainer

This record is maintained by alanruttenberg ORCID

Maintains

Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS), Saarbruecken, Germany (Government body)

Basic Formal Ontology

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