The VIVO Ontology: Enabling Networking of Scientists

VIVO, funded by NIH, utilizes Semantic Web technologies to model scientists and provides federated search to enhance the discovery of researchers and collaborators across disciplines and organizations. VIVO ontology is designed with the focus on modeling scientists, publications, resources, grants, locations, and services. It incorporates classes from popular ontologies, such as BIBO, Dublin Core, Event, FOAF, geopolitical, and SKOS. VIVO data is annotated based on the VIVO ontology to semantically represent and integrate information about faculty research (i.e., educational background, publications, expertise, grants), teaching (i.e., courses, seminars, training), and service (i.e., organizing conferences, editorial boards, other community services). The VIVO ontology has been adopted nationally and internationally, and enables the national and international federated search for finding experts.