Welcome to the OntoTerm web site!

Antonio Moreno Ortiz

OntoTerm is a Terminology Management System (TMS) developed to overcome some of the problems that existing TMSs have. In particular it addresses two major issues:

• Conceptual modeling: the object domain or subject field must be conceptually structured prior to entering language-specific terms. The construction of an ontology, i.e. a conceptually structured body of language-independent knowledge, is thus the first step in the construction of a termbase.
• Terminology information exchange: OntoTerm implements the recent ISO standard for terminology exchange: Martif (ISO 1220) and all the data categories from the CLS Framework (ISO 1620).

If you are familiar with conventional terminology database management systems, you will probably find OntoTerm rather different. To begin with, OntoTerm does not allow you to enter terms in a termbase unless you have previously entered and defined a concept explic itly in the ontology. We can then say that OntoTerm is an ontology-based TMS (thereby its name). How do I use it? Are there any user manuals? On-line help?

At present the OntoTerm team consists of just one person (me). This means that I hardly have the time write the software, let alone manuals or on-line help. Here's a Getting Started Guide describing how you go about using OntoTerm. The Screenshots page contains also a few tips on how to use the program.

At this early stage of development the only on-line help available is on data categories. You can have a better description of them where I ripped it from.

The aim of offering the program for evaluation is to improve it in as many ways as users may suggest. That's why I need your feedback. Please send me bugs, comments or any sort of improvements you would like to get in future versions.

Are there any papers describing it?

Not yet, but I am working hard on this. I just haven't had the time to write anything but software! However, it is next on my priorities list.

The documentation page contains some relevant documents that you may find useful to unders tand the rationale behind OntoTerm. Do also have a look at the links page.

What does it look like?

Go straight to the Screenshots page or click on the links below to view some screenshots.

• The Ontology Editor
• The Ontology Navigator
• The TermBase Editor in edit mode
• The HTML Report Generator

How much does it cost?

Nothing! At this moment OntoTerm is completely free! This is so because it is still at a very early stage of development. You are encouraged to download the program, use it and tell me what you think about it. OntoTerm 0.98 beta is available for download here. This evaluation version is not without restrictions, though: even though the Ontology Editor allows you to create as large as an ontology as you wish, it will not allow you to enter more than ten concepts in the TermBase Editor.

If you are interested and want to be informed as soon as new versions become available, do send me e-mail and I will add you to my OntoTerm-users mailing list. E-mail me also if you desperately need an unrestricted version.

Will it ever be commercially available?

That depends very much on whether you think it's useful. Som e people seem to think that it is better than existing commercial TMSs. Again, download it and judge for yourself.