Ontology Service API Break-out Group

Goal and motivation

A common API implemented by ontology data services enables clients such as EQ editors that heavily rely on such a service to plug into different data providers, local or remote, at their choice.

Service definitions

1. Ontology lookup
   • Function: lookup the ontologies being served by the data service
   • Input:
   • Output:
2. Look up term
   • Function: Obtain the full term information for a given ID
   • Input:
   • Output:
3. Completion list
   • Function: Obtain matching term names for a partial term name string
   • Input:
   • Output:
4. Neighborhood graph
   • Function: Obtain parents, children, descendants, or ancestors for a given term
   • Input:
   • Output:
5. Downloading ontology
   • Function: Obtain all terms and relationships comprising an ontology
   • Input:
   • Output:
6. Login
   • Function: Given a username and secret, obtain an authentication token
   • Input:
   • Output:
7. Save EQ statements
   • Function: Save an array of EQ statements to the data store
   • Input:
   • Output:
8. Load EQ statements
   • Function: Load an array of EQ statements from the data store
   • Input:
   • Output:

Query languages

• SPARQL

Data exchange formats

• Text over HTTP:
  • OBO format
  • OBO-XML format
  • OBD-XML format
  • RDF