Prefix and namespace registries

Permalink URI: https://w3id.org/id-rules/registries

Table S3

| Prefix registry | Scope | Note | Registers Native Prefix | Registers Native Resolving Namespace | Functions as a resolver | | --------------- | ----- | ---- | ----------------------- | ------------------------- | --------- | ----------------------- | | Identifiers.org | Life sciences | Manually curated. Core OBO foundry namespaces are imported periodically. | yes | yes | yes | | Data Hub | Cross-domain | Datasets may be uploaded or registered for free. Used to populate the linked open data cloud. | yes | yes | for uploaded datasets | | OBO foundry | Bio-Ontologies | Each ontology in OBO requires an “ID space”, unique across all ontologies in OBO. Not all ontologies are eligible for inclusion. | “ID space” | no | OBO PURL only | | Bioportal | Bio-Ontologies | Each ontology in BioPortal requires a “Short ID” which is unique across all ontologies in BioPortal. | “Short ID” | no | Bioportal PURL only | | Prefix.CC | Cross-domain | Designed for Semantic Web practitioners. | Accepts, short, memorable prefixes only, punctuation not allowed. Prefix assignments subject to community voting. | yes | yes | no | | Linked Open Vocabularies | Cross-domain | Designed for Semantic Web practitioners. Vocabularies relevant to linked data. | yes | yes | no | | BioSharing | Life sciences - policies, standards and databases | Manually curated crowd-sourcing approach. Periodically synchronized with other sources such as Identifiers.org. Each BioSharing record is registered with a short ID, which is unique across all of BioSharing. | yes | no | BioSharing PURL only | | Gene Ontology Prefix Registry | Identifiers that use GO or that are used by GO | Manually curated YAML, managed in github. Pull requests accepted. Periodically manually synchronized with other sources such as Identifiers.org | yes | yes | yes |

There are other databases and web applications that leverage/mirror the prefixes/namespaces served from the above registries, but that do not register any new ones themselves; these include Biocontext, the Ontology Lookup Service and others.

Biosharing and the Gene Ontology Prefix Registry are hybrid approaches wherein prefixes/namespaces are imported but also registered natively; this hybrid approach requires post-hoc coordination. The ongoing coordination and aggregation of information from various prefixing authorities is important to further minimize collisions.