OntoSpreadEd: Developing Ontologies with a Dedicated Online Template Spreadsheet Editor.

BACKGROUND: Ontologies are representations of entities in a domain that can accelerate research across various disciplines. They are often represented in formal logical languages such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL). To build ontologies, domain scientists must formally capture their knowledge of their domains in these structured forms. However, existing ontology editing tools are often built for ontologists or other technical experts who are familiar with the underlying formalisms such as OWL, and are comfortable working with technically dense interfaces, or even without a visual interface. The resulting technically oriented tools create barriers to adoption and use by nontechnical domain experts. METHODS: To address this challenge, we present the Ontology Spreadsheet Editor (OntoSpreadEd), a web-based spreadsheet-like editor for ontologies that aims to make ontology development more efficient and accessible to a wide range of users. OntoSpreadEd is a web application that uses GitHub as a central version control platform, allowing users to create, edit and review ontologies using a familiar spreadsheet interface. The editor features a range of useful features, including autocomplete, validation and searching, to facilitate the development process. CONCLUSION: OntoSpreadEd offers an accessible approach to ontology development that can help bridge the gap between researchers and ontology editors, accelerating the adoption of ontologies across diverse research fields. It supports a customisable and extensible automated release process that converts the content from templates into a releasable OWL format.