POEM Ontology Change Management

This repository manages changes to the POEM ontology and its underlying project data for a Wellcome Trust-funded research project.

Purpose

This repository supports:

• Documenting requested changes to the POEM ontology and associated data through GitHub Issues
• Reviewing and implementing accepted changes through Pull Requests
• Validating ontology and data files through GitHub Actions CI checks
• Publishing stable snapshots through GitHub Releases
• Generating human-readable release notes from linked issues and pull requests

All traceability is provided through standard GitHub mechanisms: Issues, Pull Requests, commits, reviews, tags, and Releases. This repository intentionally does not maintain a separate generated provenance knowledge graph or machine-readable change summary.

Repository Structure

/
├── README.md                        # This file
├── CONTRIBUTING.md                  # Contributor guide
├── CHANGELOG.md                     # Human-readable change history
├── LICENSE                          # License
├── ontology/
│   ├── README.md                    # Ontology documentation
│   └── poem.ttl                     # POEM ontology (Turtle)
├── data/
│   ├── README.md                    # Data documentation
│   └── curated/                     # Curated data files
├── docs/
│   ├── change-management-workflow.md
│   ├── release-process.md
│   └── validation.md
├── shapes/
│   ├── README.md                    # SHACL shapes documentation
│   ├── ontology-validation.shacl    # SHACL shapes for the ontology
│   └── data-validation.shacl       # SHACL shapes for data files
├── scripts/
│   ├── README.md                    # Scripts documentation
│   └── validate.sh                  # Validation script
└── .github/
    ├── ISSUE_TEMPLATE/              # Structured issue forms
    ├── PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md     # Pull request template
    ├── workflows/
    │   └── validate.yml             # CI validation workflow
    └── release.yml                  # Release notes configuration

Workflow Overview

1. Request a change — Open a GitHub Issue using the appropriate issue template (ontology change, data change, documentation change, or validation change).
2. Triage — Maintainers review the issue, ask clarifying questions, and label it accordingly.
3. Implementation — Accepted changes are implemented in a feature branch and submitted as a Pull Request linked to the originating issue.
4. Review — Maintainers review the PR. CI checks validate ontology and data files automatically.
5. Merge — Approved PRs are merged into main.
6. Release — Periodically, maintainers create a GitHub Release with a version tag. Release notes are auto-generated from merged PRs and edited for clarity.

For detailed guidance, see:

• CONTRIBUTING.md — how to contribute changes
• docs/change-management-workflow.md — full lifecycle description
• docs/release-process.md — how releases are prepared
• docs/validation.md — validation approach

Ontology

The POEM ontology is maintained in ontology/poem.ttl in Turtle (.ttl) format. See ontology/README.md for details on the ontology's scope and content.

License

See LICENSE.