This page deals with policies and guidelines for the process of ontology review, particularly operational aspects such as:

  • which ontologies should be reviewed, and in what order?
  • how should reviewers be chosen?
  • what is the workflow for conducting a review?
  • how will conflicts be resolved?

ReviewCriteriaPolicies covers guidelines and policies for the criteria by which an ontology should be reviewed.

How to request an ontology review

  1. Go to the OBO Foundry Operations Committee issue tracker.
  2. Click on New issue.
  3. Select the “Ontology Review Request” issue template
  4. Enter title of issue (e.g., “Review request for MyO”) and any comments.
  5. You will see a link for a self-review form. Fill this in.
  6. Click “Submit”.

Ontology review priority

Ontologies will be reviewed in the order in which the review request is received. If an ontology previously submitted a request for an OBO Foundry review (that is, before this committee was formed), then the date of the original request is used to determine priority.

Any ontology group wanting a review by the Editorial WG must submit a request on the issue tracker

Ontology review workflow

After requesting a review, a link will be provided to perform a self-review. The self-review is then assessed by the Editorial Working Group to determine if the ontology is ready for full review. Full reviews are conducted by community experts, who provide feedback to the submitter and make recommendations for acceptance to the OBO Foundry Operations Committee. OBO Foundry ontologies are reviewed primarily by how well they apply the currently accepted OBO Foundry Principles.