Ontorat: Automatic generation and editing of ontology terms

The web-based Ontorat (http://ontorat.hegroup.org/) program has been developed to automatically generate and edit ontology terms from a spreadsheet format input (Excel or tab-delimited file) based on an ontology design pattern (ODP). The Ontorat web interface is intuitive and suitable for users with basic background in Manchester ontology format scripting, the same language used in the Protégé OWL editor. Ontorat also collects ODPs and provides templates and sample data for future reuse. As a demonstration, Ontorat is applied to automatically generate assay terms with axioms and annotations added into the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI).