From Culture to Core: Integrating Cultural Heritage Data into Cross-Domain Research Infrastructures
Tietz, Tabea; Söhn, Linnaea Charlotte; Bruns, Oleksandra; Waitelonis, Jörg; Posthumus, Etienne; Steller, Jonatan Jalle; Schrade, Torsten; Sack, Harald
- Publisher
- Zenodo
- Language
- en
Abstract
This poster describes the NFDI4Culture Ontology (CTO). It is being presented at the International Semantic Web Conference 2025 in Nara, Japan. Within the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) in Germany, the NFDI4Culture consortium addresses a critical challenge: unifying access to fragmented and semantically heterogeneous cultural heritage (CH) research data scattered across institutions and disciplines. This work presents the NFDI4Culture Ontology (CTO), a strategically designed lightweight, BFO-aligned ontology that successfully bridges the gap to represent CH research resources between specialized domain requirements and interoperability demands across diverse cultural heritage fields including musicology, performing arts, and architecture. CTO extends the established mid-level ontology NFDIcore while maintaining the flexibility essential for capturing domain-specific nuances and is fully integrated into productive research data infrastructures. This contribution demonstrates how domain-specific ontologies can support both highly specialized research needs and broader cross-domain interoperability through modular architecture, and provides insights into proven modeling strategies, integration workflows, and lessons learned from a productive system in the CH domain.
Full text
Integrating Cultural Heritage Data into Cross-Domain Research Infrastructures ARK schema: DataFeed schema: DataFeedItem cto: source item bfo: object Robert Schumann nfdicore: person https://d-nb.info/ gnd/118611666 iao: centrally registered identifier nfdicore: identifier iao: information content entity bfo: generically dependent continuant https://rism.online/sources/201001959 ARK bfo: material entity nfdicore: gnd identifier bfo: independent continuant cto: is about real world entity cto: has related person schema: Sheet Music bfo: has continuant part iao: is about nfdicore: has external identifier Funding Grant No. NFDI4Culture — 441958017 NFDI4Culture NFDI4Culture Data Search Consortium for research data on material and immaterial cultural heritage Single point of access to decentralized research data via the Culture Information Portal and the NFDI4Culture KG From Culture to Core NFDI4Culture Ontology (CTO) In Use Represents an index of the research data within NFDI4Culture and builds the foundation of the NFDI4Culture KG Aligns with the mid-level ontology NFDIcore and the foundational Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) Tabea Tietz, Linnaea Söhn, Oleksandra Bruns, Jörg Waitelonis, Etienne Posthumus, Jonatan Jalle Steller, Alexandra Büttner, Heike Fliegl, Torsten Schrade, Harald Sack 1 FIZ Karlsruhe | 2 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology | 3 Academy of the Sciences and Literature Mainz 1,2 1,2 1,2 1 1,2 1 3 3 3 3 Data Stories NFDI4Memory KG
