Terms & Conditions

General Introduction

TechnoPortal, accessible at https://technoportal.hevs.ch/, is a web portal of ontologies and vocabularies dedicated to the technology sciences domain. It provides a web application as well as an application programming interface (API) and a SPARQL endpoint. It relies on the generic and open technology OntoPortal (https://ontoportal.org). The ontology repository allows hosting, searching, versioning, visualization, exploration, commenting and proposing on ontologies; it also includes a semantic annotation service for text (Annotator) and an ontology recommendation service (Recommender) as well as a catalog of alignments between ontologies (Mapping). All within an infrastructure fully compatible with the semantic web.

Any use of the Technoportal web application, or its API, is subject to compliance with these Terms and Conditions (T&C).

Definitions

TechnoPortal: The entire software – consisting of the web application and the programmatic interface – which offers services and functionalities for a defined set of ontologies and other semantic resources, mainly in the technology sciences domain.

Content: All data and information contained, hosted and served by TechnoPortal. This mainly concerns the ontologies themselves (source files) and their metadata (catalogue records) but it also includes alignments between ontologies, projects, comments and proposals or any other form of aggregation of this content.

Ontology: Term used to cover all types of semantic resources or semantic artefacts hosted and served on TechnoPortal: vocabulary, terminology, thesaurus, taxonomy, etc.

Web application: All web pages consumed on the client side and produced by the TechnoPortal software on the server side, to carry out the services that the portal offers and implements. This concerns all web pages accessible from the address: https://technoportal.hevs.ch/

Programmatic interface (API): All TechnoPortal functionalities and services accessible via a structured and clearly specified interface allowing a computer program to automatically interact with the software. This concerns all web service calls invoked from the addresses: https://technoportal.hevs.ch/ and https://data.technoportal.hevs.ch/

User: Any natural or legal person who accesses the TechnoPortal ontology repository, directly or via a computer program, in order to consult, contribute or download content for reuse, including for purposes other than those for which this content was produced.

Contributor: Any user, natural or legal person, who has a “user account” on TechnoPortal and is authorized to submit and document an ontology or any other form of content. A contributor can, for example, enter comments and proposals related to an ontology or its content. A contributor can be an “ontology administrator” if he/she has deposited it or if he/she has been granted this right.

Curator: Any contributor, natural or legal person, who ensures the curation of TechnoPortal content by carrying out verification and harmonization of metadata and all other actions ensuring the quality of TechnoPortal data. A curator can propose modifications to contributors to improve the quality of the ontologies or their metadata, in compliance with the Charter of metadata curators. Any curator has administrative rights over all ontologies in the repository.

Administrator: Any curator, natural or legal person, who, in addition to content curation, ensures the general administration of the portal: user management, addition/deletion of content, monitoring of the portal and development of additional functionalities.

Administrative authority: Any public or private person responsible for a public service mission.

Reuse: Use by any natural or legal person of TechnoPortal ontologies or other content including for purposes other than those for which they were produced.

Access rights

Using TechnoPortal is free.

TechnoPortal content is by default publicly accessible and open to any user. For ontologies and their metadata, there are nevertheless three levels of access rights:

• Public access with download of the source file (and versions) possible. The default mode.

• Public access without downloading the source file. This mode must be explicitly requested to an administrator.

• Private access reserved for a selection of contributors declared by the depositary of an ontology as well as curators and administrators. This access therefore requires a connection via a user account.

Purpose and Functionalities

The TechnoPortal ontology repository mainly allows:

• the discovery, browsing, search, viewing or downloading of ontologies and other content by users;

• the publication of ontologies or other content by contributors;

• management of content and the repository by curators and administrators.

Discovery, consultation, search, viewing or downloading of ontologies and other content by users

TechnoPortal provides ontologies published by contributors which can be accessed for download, or via the web application or the API.

Consultation of the ontologies and metadata made available for public access on TechnoPortal or their downloading does not require any connection or prior registration by users. Consulting and downloading private ontologies requires authentication. Not creating a user account does not affect consultation of publicly accessible resources on the repository. All users are required to respect the user license specific to each ontology.

Any user can participate in the quality control of TechnoPortal by reporting, to the contact email address, in particular content not intended to appear there (illicit or contrary to the T&Cs).

Publication of ontologies or other content by contributors

Any contributor can contribute to TechnoPortal content, among other things, by publishing ontologies and documenting them with metadata. Any contributor can also modify or update content to which he or she has the rights (i.e., generally content previously posted). Removing content generally requires contacting an administrator.

To become a contributor, a user must register on TechnoPortal by creating a personal account. For more details on user accounts, see the Privacy section of the T&Cs. After automatic account validation, the various features are immediately available. Administration rights to ontologies other than those deposited by a contributor must be assigned by another contributor who is an administrator of the ontology concerned or by an TechnoPortal curator.

Content and repository management by curators and administrators

Curators and administrators are associated users or members of the TechnoPortal management and maintenance team. They are responsible as much as possible for controlling the quality and consistency of the repository’s content. The role of curator or administrator must be assigned by another curator or administrator from the management team.

Code of Conduct and User Responsibilities

TechnoPortal is not intended to disseminate advertising data, promotion of private interests, contrary to public order or, more generally, illicit. TechnoPortal administrators may, if necessary, without notice, delete or make access to such data or content impossible.

TechnoPortal encourages contributors to make the content they publish reliable and documented.

Editorial line

TechnoPortal’s editorial line concerns content related, in the broad sense, to the fields of technology sciences. Generic ontologies or semantic web vocabularies can also be hosted for the sake of consistency and completeness of the service to users. Curators may not agree to host and serve ontologies that are not in the editorial line of TechnoPortal. Users and contributors are encouraged to also turn to other actors and providers of the OntoPortal Alliance (https://ontoportal.org) who can provide similar ontology repositories with other editorial lines.

Personal data

Ontologies and other content hosted on TechnoPortal are not intended to contain personal data. Only registered accounts contain personal data (See Privacy).

Data covered by intellectual property rights

Contributors are solely responsible for the ontologies or content they publish on TechnoPortal.

When a contributor publishes an ontology including intellectual property rights that may hinder its reuse, he/she must mention these rights in the metadata of the ontology. It must then indicate the identity of the natural or legal person holding these rights or, if this is not known, the identity of the person from whom the ontology concerned was obtained.

When contributors submit an ontology, it is preferable that they themselves are authors, developers or contributors to this ontology. Otherwise, TechnoPortal’s curators may not agree to host and serve an ontology deposited by a non-author and for which TechnoPortal has received a removal request from an original author or developer of the ontology concerned.

Licenses

We distinguish the license which applies to a hosted ontology from the license which applies to the metadata of this ontology described in the TechnoPortal catalog entry.

The license of the ontology is indicated, as much as possible, by the contributor in the metadata. It must be in accordance with the level of accessibility chosen by the contributor for this ontology. In the absence of an explicitly specified license, an ontology publicly accessible on TechnoPortal is considered by default as public and reusable and distributed under Open License (equivalent to CC-BY).

The license that applies to the ontology metadata (publicly and privately accessible) described in the TechnoPortal catalog entry is an Open License (equivalent to CC-BY). In the case of private ontologies, TechnoPortal undertakes not to disseminate this information until the access right of the ontology is changed to “public”.

Ontologies containing non-public information are disseminated, where applicable, only after agreement from the third party rights holder or co-rights holder.

Contact email address

TechnoPortal’s contact email address to reach the management and maintenance team is technoportal-support@hevs.ch

The contact email address allows users to contact TechnoPortal administrators for help or information on using the repository or its content. It is not intended to receive requests relating to the individual situation of a user in their relations with an administrative authority. It is also not a direct way to contact a contributor; To do this, users can turn to the contact information provided in the ontology metadata.

Commitments and responsibilities

Quality of service and service offered

Subject to the provisions of the following paragraph, the TechnoPortal management and maintenance team strives to guarantee the availability and robustness of TechnoPortal services. This applies to all TechnoPortal software, whether accessed through its web application or its API.

However, the TechnoPortal management and maintenance team also reserves the right to develop, modify or suspend, without notice, the TechnoPortal repository services for maintenance or for any other reason that it deems necessary. The unavailability of TechnoPortal does not give rise to any compensation and cannot give rise to any prosecution.

TechnoPortal undertakes to take all necessary precautions to preserve the integrity of the ontologies made available, and in particular to prevent their content from being distorted or subject to a specific interpretation. TechnoPortal undertakes to follow, as far as possible, the standards of the semantic web community and in particular the W3C Recommendations.

For the sole purpose of guaranteeing a better service to users, and without ever distorting its meaning or value, curators reserve the possibility of modifying the metadata associated with an ontology.

Responsibilities of TechnoPortal

The TechnoPortal management and maintenance team does not carry out a priori control over the content of contributors. As soon as TechnoPortal becomes aware of illegal content or content that does not comply with the T&Cs, TechnoPortal administrators act quickly to remove this content or make access to it impossible. A “Send Feedback” procedure is set up on TechnoPortal and can be used to report content that does not comply with the T&Cs.

TechnoPortal reserves the right to delete or make inaccessible, without notice:

• Contributions unrelated to the activity of the portal (see Editorial line), published for the purpose of hindering the proper functioning, advertising or promotion, propaganda or proselytism and any contribution contravening the laws and regulations in force;

• The personal account of a contributor, curator or administrator and to refuse that certain people have access to the portal in the event of a violation of the T&Cs.

Textual and graphic content

The textual content (documentation, explanatory texts, etc.) and graphic content (logos, graphic charter, iconographic representations, etc.) offered by TechnoPortal are the property of the TechnoPortal management and maintenance team. Like the rest of the portal code, they are accessible under Open License.

Evolution of the Terms & Conditions

These general Terms & Conditions (T&Cs) from their first version in September 2024, must be validated when creating a user account.

These T&Cs may be amended at any time, without notice, depending on modifications made to TechnoPortal, changes in legislation or for any other reason deemed necessary by the governance of the TechnoPortal repository.

Contributors will be asked to re-accept the conditions of use to continue using TechnoPortal, when changes to the T&Cs are applied.

Privacy policy

Personal data of contributors

The personal data collected by TechnoPortal when creating or having an account are:

• First name, last name, email address;

• ORCID identifier;

• GitHub Login;

• Whether or not to subscribe to the users’ mailing list.

Creating an account results in the creation of a ‘login’ and an API key allowing to use TechnoPortal’s API (with the same rights associated with the user account). The creation of an account is associated with registration on the TechnoPortal user mailing list unless the contributor wishes not to be. A contributor can access and modify their information via a dedicated “Account Settings” page. This page is not public and cannot be referenced or identified by external search engines.

The TechnoPortal management and maintenance team undertakes to take all necessary measures to guarantee the security and confidentiality of the information of contributors holding an account. This information is never communicated to third parties, except in cases provided for by law. The purpose of these data is the implementation and proper functioning of TechnoPortal as well as the processing of requests made via the assistance form. The main purpose of contributor accounts is to allow the posting of ontologies (or content) or access to ontologies (or content) for restricted use. This purpose is linked to the main mission of sharing TechnoPortal ontologies. Apart from the software, the recipients of personal data are the members of the TechnoPortal management and maintenance team who contribute to the implementation of TechnoPortal and the services offered.

TechnoPortal may also record and collect information relating to the use of the services by users in its server-side logs. This information is in no way used to track the behavior of a specific user. However, they can be used, in batches, for monitoring and improving the service.

All personal data are stored on TechnoPortal servers. The retention period of personal data is:

• Less than a year for data collected in visitor logs.

• For life for information in a contributor’s account as long as the account is active. A contributor can nevertheless request the deletion of his account at any time.

You can exercise these rights by contacting the TechnoPortal management and maintenance team (with the exception of the right to lodge a complaint which must be exercised directly with a supervisory authority) by email at the contact email address.

Cookies used by the web application

TechnoPortal places audience measurement cookies (number of visits, pages viewed), session identification and local language cookies on users’ web browsers. A final cookie is used, once connected to TechnoPortal, to store a contributor’s APIkey. The session cookie lasts a maximum of one day.

For audience measurements, TechnoPortal uses Google Analytics 4 to collect and aggregate this data for the purposes of analysis and monitoring of the platform. This information is in no way used to track the behavior of a specific user. However, they can be used, in batches, for monitoring and improving the service. Google Analytics cookies are:

• _ga: This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It typically expires after 2 years.

• _gid: This cookie is used to distinguish users and is set by Google Analytics to store and update a unique value for each page visited. It typically expires after 24 hours.

• _gat: This cookie is used to throttle request rate and limits the collection of data on high-traffic sites. It expires after 1 minute.

Legal Notice

Identification

TechnoPortal https://technoportal.hevs.ch/

Contact

For any questions relating to these T&Cs, you can write to us at the following email address: technoportal-support@hevs.ch

Data hosting

TechnoPortal servers and data are hosted on the HES-SO Valais-Wallis premises, in Switzerland.

Unless otherwise stated, all TechnoPortal content is under Open License, TechnoPortal source code is under BSD-2 license.

The TechnoPortal software is based on the generic OntoPortal software (https://github.com/ontoportal). TechnoPortal software is publicly available on GitHub: https://github.com/technoportal