OntoRights

OntoRights is a well-founded ontology the domain of human rights violations documentation. It exists in two versions: Full OntoRights and Easy OntoRights. Additionally, there is Basic OntoRights, a very simple diagram in an informal notation meant to serve as a pedagogicial tool.

What is an ontology?

An ontology is a shared data model that can be reused and adapted for many different systems and applications. Ontologies are valuable for database designing because they reduce the need of reinventing the wheel. They can also support systems integration and artificial intelligence. Here you can read more about the general benefits of ontologies: Explaining Ontologies to Your Boss.

How is OntoRights useful?

The primary purpose of OntoRights is to support human rights groups that are building case databases. For this, Basic and Easy OntoRights are most useful. Read more in the Easy OntoRights manual.

For other purposes, Full OntoRights is probably more relavant. Read more in the Full OntoRights documentation. All versions can be accessed here, available to use with an unlicense.

Background

The first version of OntoRights was the result of a master thesis (pdf or Google Doc) research project by Jöran Lindeberg at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV)], Stockholm University. Supervisor was Associate Professor Martin Henkel.

The project was done in collaboration with HURIDOCS, an NGO that helps human rights groups gather, organise and use information. The idea was to complement HURIDOCS’ Community Rescource for conceptual modelling. Contact person at HURIDOCS was first Kristin Antin, knowledge collaboration lead, and later Salva Lacruz, programme manager.

News

2024-08-07. OntoRights 1.1 is presented in an open-access article in Journal of Human Rights Practice.

2023-09-08. OntoRights 1.1 is released. It includes some minor adaptions of of Full and Easy OntoRights based on feedback from other researchers. Basic OntoRights is created to bridge the gap between the Easy OntoRights and human rights practitioners that are new to conceptual modelling. Simple OntoRights is renamed to Easy OntoRights.

2023-03-27. Talk about OntoRights as part of a virtual seminar about shared datamodels organised by HURIDOCS.

2023-01-13. Virtual talk with the UFO/OntoUML research group about the work with OntoRights.

2022-11-25. Paper with focus on the requirements elicitation of OntoRights presented at the Practice of Enterprise Modeling (PoEM) conference.

Get in touch

If you are interested in using OntoRights or simply discuss ontologies and data modelling in the human rights domain, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Jöran Lindeberg
PhD student, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV), Stockholm University joran@dsv.su.se
+46 70 6016136 (Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp)