Publishing QUDT to an EDG Server

This page describes the procedure for uploading the QUDT schema and vocabularies to a remote TopBraid EDG server (separate from the localhost server running with TopBraid Composer). While the steps are being described in batches, the EDG interface encourages you to step through the whole procedure for one graph before proceeding to the next one. The approach you use is entirely up to you.

Keep in mind that there is a publicly available EDG server instance for QUDT here, so you would only need to do this if you need a private version.

There is also a "quick and dirty" method of deploying QUDT to your server described at the bottom of this page, but it offers more limited capabilities (e.g. no search capability from the home page using "Search the EDG")

1. Create EDG Collections

As shown in the screenshot below, there are 3 collections that support the QUDT Schema.

Schema Collections ,

The names might change slightly, but their roles are:

QUDT SHACL Schema (noOWL)- Version 2.1.4 -- This is the main QUDT OWL Schema, transformed into SHACL (more on this later)
QUDT SHACL Schema Supplement- Version 2.1 -- This contains additional constraints that could not be expressed in OWL, and are therefore written directly in SHACL
QUDT SHACL Schema Extensions -- This contains EDG-specific clauses to improve the user experience in using EDG

Note that these collections are defined in the "Ontologies" Asset Collection category. They are created using the "Create New Ontology" button in EDG. Take care to select the "Enable" checkbox when naming each collection, which will allow the entities to be searched for from the EDG Home page.

In the same manner, collections should be created to house the QUDT Vocabularies (categorized as "Data Graph" Asset Collections). However, when creating the data graph collections, pay attention to the "Includes" dialogue shown in the second screen shot below. Choose all of the schema collections for QUDT.

Data Graph Collections

Includes Option

2. Upload the files

The next step is to upload the file. Once a collection has been created, EDG automatically takes you to the "Import" tab to do this.

Import Tab

Choose the "Import RDF File" option and choose the appropriate file from your local environment. Repeat this for all the Data Graphs and the Ontology graphs.

3. Transform the OWL Schema to SHACL

This optional step is only needed if you have not previously converted the OWL schema into SHACL. With the main QUDT schema selected, choose the Transform Tab, then "Convert OWL Axioms to SHACL Constraints". Choose the "Convert, replacing OWL axioms" option. Don't include any of the other graphs listed.

Transform OWL

4. Enabling the cross references

Because EDG creates new base URIs for all the graphs, the import statements will not find the correct graphs to import. There's a setting that allow each EDG graph to be found by an additional "external URI". This setting is found in the Settings tab for each collection. You will need to ensure each graph's External URI is set to the original base URI, so the graphs can find each other. For example, the main QUDT schema external URI is shown below:

Settings Tab

On this same Settings page, you may need to verify that the Includes section lists the appropriate graphs that need to be visible to each specific graph.

If all goes well, at this point you should be all set!