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Open Semantic Framework
OSF logo
Developer(s)Structured Dynamics
Initial releaseJune 2009
Stable release
OSF v 3.4 / March 2016
Repository Edit this at Wikidata
Written in
Operating systemplatform independent
Type
LicenseApache 2
Websiteopensemanticframework.org

The Open Semantic Framework (OSF) is an integrated software stack using semantic technologies for knowledge management. It has a layered architecture that combines existing open source software with additional open source components developed specifically to provide a complete Web application framework. OSF is made available under the Apache 2 license.

OSF is a platform-independent Web services framework for accessing and exposing structured data, semi-structured data, and unstructured data using ontologies to reconcile semantic heterogeneities within the contributing data and schema. Internal to OSF, all data is converted to RDF to provide a common data model. The OWL 2 ontology language is used to describe the data schema overlaying all of the constituent data sources.

The architecture of OSF is built around a central layer of RESTful web services, designed to enable most constituent modules within the software stack to be substituted without major adverse impacts on the entire stack. A central organizing perspective of OSF is that of the dataset. These datasets contain the records in any given OSF instance. One or more domain ontologies is used by a given OSF instance to define the structural relationships amongst the data and their attributes and concepts.

Some of the use applications for OSF include local government, health information systems, community indicator systems, eLearning, citizen engagement, or any domain that may be modeled by ontologies.

Documentation and training videos are provided with the open-source OSF application.

History