Basic Formal Ontology (BFO)

Manual

The material below represents an introduction to ontology, information ontology and ontology design. This introduction is based on the realist approach to ontology and on the associated Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and principles for best ontology practices that have been developed and researched at IFOMIS in the last four years.

While focusing on work done at IFOMIS, the majority of the discussion is intended to be of a very general nature and to be applicable to a large number of theoretical and applied issues in ontology generally.

The material available here is part of an ongoing project to provide a one-stop resource and introduction for ontology, with special emphasis on principles for best ontology practices. In thisspirit we welcome critical comments, suggestions of further resources for inclusion and feedback regarding the accuracy and usefulness of this material.

You can download the manual from here.

Acknowledgements

Work on this document has been supported by the Wolfgang Paul Program of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation Project Forms of Life the Network of Excellence in Semantic Interoperability and Data Mining in Biomedicine of the European Union.

Thanks are due to a number of people for their help with this project:

For detailed comments and feedback, we are grateful to Holger Stenzhorn, Ingvar Johansson, Bastian Fischer and Pierre Grenon.
For valuable conversation and comments, Mathias Brochhausen, Cristian Cocos, Boris Hennig, Kristl Laux, Stefan Schulz, Ulf Schwarz, Chris Partridge, Ulf Schwarz, Frédéric Tremblay, Barry Smith and the members of the Institute for Philosophical Studies who were present for the April 11, 2006 meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin should all be thanked.

	BFOBasic Formal Ontology
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	Manual The material below represents an introduction to ontology, information ontology and ontology design. This introduction is based on the realist approach to ontology and on the associated Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and principles for best ontology practices that have been developed and researched at IFOMIS in the last four years. While focusing on work done at IFOMIS, the majority of the discussion is intended to be of a very general nature and to be applicable to a large number of theoretical and applied issues in ontology generally. The material available here is part of an ongoing project to provide a one-stop resource and introduction for ontology, with special emphasis on principles for best ontology practices. In thisspirit we welcome critical comments, suggestions of further resources for inclusion and feedback regarding the accuracy and usefulness of this material. You can download the manual from here. Acknowledgements Work on this document has been supported by the Wolfgang Paul Program of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation Project Forms of Life the Network of Excellence in Semantic Interoperability and Data Mining in Biomedicine of the European Union. Thanks are due to a number of people for their help with this project: For detailed comments and feedback, we are grateful to Holger Stenzhorn, Ingvar Johansson, Bastian Fischer and Pierre Grenon. For valuable conversation and comments, Mathias Brochhausen, Cristian Cocos, Boris Hennig, Kristl Laux, Stefan Schulz, Ulf Schwarz, Chris Partridge, Ulf Schwarz, Frédéric Tremblay, Barry Smith and the members of the Institute for Philosophical Studies who were present for the April 11, 2006 meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin should all be thanked.
	Last changed by Holger Stenzhorn on 17 February 2010