FAQ

metaphactory is a low-code FAIR data platform designed to accelerate our customers' Knowledge Graph journey and drive knowledge democratization by delivering innovative features for knowledge graph management, semantic knowledge modeling, rapid application building, knowledge discovery and end-user oriented interaction.

Learn how to use metaphactory step-by-step with our self-guided tutorial which includes informative videos and hands-on exercises. For additional questions or to request a demo, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

Yes, metaphactory is built on open standards. It supports W3C standards, including RDF, SPARQL, OWL, SHACL, SKOS, SPARQL-star and RDF-star.

RDF (Resource Description Framework) is a standard for representing data and metadata on the Web. SPARQL is a query language used to express queries across RDF data sources. OWL (Web Ontology Language) is a standard for representing ontologies. SHACL (Shapes Constraint Language) is a language for validating RDF graphs against a set of conditions. SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) is a standard for representing thesauri and other types of knowledge organization systems. RDF-star and the associated query language SPARQL-star are extensions to the existing RDF and SPARQL standards.

By using these open standards, metaphactory enables interoperability with other systems and tools. This means that knowledge graph assets created with metaphactory can be easily integrated with other systems and can be shared and reused with other tools and platforms.

For additional questions, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

metaphactory provides a range of features for creating and managing semantic knowledge models, including:

Ontology Modeling & Management

• Visual ontology editor based on a visual language and which delivers a user-friendly environment for ontology exploration, visualization, editing and documentation. The visual language translates to core elements of OWL and SHACL and results in an ontology based on open modeling and validation language W3C standards
• Ontology cataloging for search, versioning (Git) and metadata curation

SKOS Vocabulary Management

• Form-based creation and editing of SKOS vocabularies to capture business-relevant term lists and hierarchies (hypernyms and hyponyms) incl. management of multilingual synonyms and symbols
• Performant tree visualization of and search across term hierarchies
• Vocabulary cataloging for search, versioning (Git) and metadata curation

Tight integration between ontologies and vocabularies

• Support for linking classes in the ontology editor to controlled vocabularies

Data cataloging capabilities

• Creation, management or import of existing dataset metadata at integration time, making such context metadata an integral part of the connected knowledge graph
• Support for DCAT and Dublin Core
• Exposure of dataset context information in end-user oriented search interfaces, knowledge panels, and custom dashboards

Learn how to use metaphactory step-by-step with our self-guided tutorial which includes informative videos and hands-on exercises. For additional questions or to request a demo, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

Yes. Our platform is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive so that non-technical users - such as domain experts or business users - can create and edit ontologies and vocabularies without needing to know RDF, OWL, SHACL or SKOS. To get your users started on the semantic modeling journey, we recommend our self-guided tutorial, which comes with informative videos and hands-on exercises.

It's important to note that metaphactory provides ontology and vocabulary versioning through Git, allowing multiple users to work on assets together and keep track of changes. This can make it easier for your team to collaborate.

If you need additional training, we provide different courses in our metaphacts Academy for you and your team. Learn more: metaphact's Academy

For additional questions, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

metaphactory provides a visual interface that allows users to create, manage and share ontologies. The platform is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive so that non-technical users - such as domain experts and business users - can create and edit ontologies without OWL or SHACL expertise.

The process typically begins by creating a new ontology or importing an existing one. Users can then add concepts and relationships to the ontology using a visual user interface and can collaboratively create a semantic model of their domain. The visual language translates to core elements of OWL and SHACL and results in an ontology based on open modeling and validation language W3C standards.

Users can also import or export ontologies in various formats. Concepts and relations can be reused across ontologies. Ontologies in metaphactory are versioned using Git. 

Learn how to use metaphactory step-by-step with our self-guided tutorial which includes informative videos and hands-on exercises. For additional questions or to request a demo, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

No, you do not have to know how to code to use metaphactory. metaphactory is a low-code platform that enables application engineers to quickly build knowledge graph apps using a powerful templating mechanism and a rich set of W3C components for searching, visualizing and exploring information.

metaphactory delivers the following capabilities for model-driven application building:

• Powerful template engine to render knowledge graph instances pertaining to the same class/type in the ontology in a unified way
• Rich set of built-in W3C Web Components using HTML 5 syntax for composing templates, application pages and dashboards declaratively
• Web-based HTML editor with syntax highlighting
• Interactive and multilingual applications are built on the fly (declaratively), without the need to change the source code
• No-code wizards supporting application engineers in the application building process by allowing them to identify and visually select classes, relations and attributes from the ontology that are required to capture the end-users’ information intent
• Individual elements in the resulting application can be customized by templating and parameterizing them through the powerful handlebars templating language
• Customized user views depending on user roles and access permissions and ability to customize dashboards to a customer’s corporate look-and-feel

Learn how to use metaphactory step-by-step with our self-guided tutorial which includes informative videos and hands-on exercises. For additional questions or to request a demo, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

metaphactory addresses the needs of domain experts or subject matter experts (SMEs) and business users, by providing them with an easy-to-use and visual Web interface to manage, curate, search and explore the knowledge graph. At the same time, it provides advanced graph management and app-building functionalities for knowledge graph engineers, ontologists, taxonomists and application engineers, thus allowing diverse user groups to collaboratively create, maintain and consume the knowledge graph.

For additional questions, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

metaphactory supports standard SPARQL 1.1 federation to connect to any accessable RDF knowledge graph. This includes public sources like Wikidata as well as private enterprise knowledge graphs. Additionally, metaphactory provides a federation (virtual access) layer that allows for connecting to REST APIs and SQL endpoints with existing connectors, as well as for the creation of custom connectors for any IT system. Read our blog post "Federation in metaphactory" for additional insights on this topic. 

For additional questions, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

You can quickly get started with metaphactory using one of the three options on our Get Started page:

• Tutorial option: 4-week fully hosted metaphactory, including a self-guided tutorial with introductory videos and hands-on exercises; no infrastructure costs
• Docker option: 2-week trial; run metaphactory anywhere with any graph database
• AWS Marketplace option: 2-week trial; run metaphactory on AWS Cloud with any graph database; no infrastructure costs

For additional questions or to request a demo, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.

Every license (metaphactory instance) includes access for an unlimited number of users.

For additional questions, don't hesitate to contact us - our experts are here to help.