Table 4 Overview of application of obo foundry principles of ontology development

Open

The COPPER ontology is openly available via GitHuba and OSFb, and will be submitted to the BSSO foundry.

Common Formal Language

The COPPER ontology is available in an owl file using the RDF-XML syntax.

Unique URI

Each class and property in COPPER has a unique uniform resource identifier.

Versioning

Version control is available via GitHub and OSF, including comments describing the changes made in each version.

Textual Definitions

Textual definitions following guidelines for ontological definitions [50] were created for all classes.

Naming Conventions

COPPER uses clear naming conventions.

Documentation

The current paper serves as documentation for the development and structure of the COPPER ontology.

Locus of Authority

We provided a clear point of contact in GitHub, though long-term point of contact still needs to be established.

Reuse

We have documented the reuse of both ontological and non-ontological resources throughout this paper. Further, ontological reuse can be recognized within the ontology by the original IDs, and reuse of non-ontological sources is noted in a comment for each class

Documented Plurality of Users

We provide space for an overview of projects using the COPPER ontology on OSF and GitHub. Documenting usage of the COPPER ontology that we were made aware of is part of the maintenance plan.

Maintenance

The ontology is planned to be maintained and updated in the context of the projects it will be used in.

Responsiveness

An issue tracker was implemented via GitHub.