Ontologist volunteer needed: BFO based approach to ontologize the Harmonization of Common Data Models for COVID-19

[Asiyah Yu Lin]

Dear respectful ontologists,

FDA has led a PCORTF funded project of harmonization of CDMs (sentinel, i2b2,OMOP, PCORNet, etc.). It is a collaborative work among FDA,NIH (NLM, NCI, NCAT) and ONC. You can check the project's description https://aspe.hhs.gov/harmonization-various-common-data-models-and-open-standards-evidence-generation  and related publication here:  https://www.ohdsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Overview_RWD-and-PCORTF-projectMay232017.pdf    
 

I was not involved in this work, but I know the person (Mitra Rocca) who leads the project. The results are saved in NCI's  https://cdebrowser.nci.nih.gov/cdebrowserClient/cdeBrowser.html#/search?programArea=0&contextId=6CB969CC-DD4B-1016-E053-F662850A40C7

Recently, FDA has published the common data harmonization for COVID 19 https://www.fda.gov/drugs/coronavirus-covid-19-drugs/covid-19-real-world-data-rwd-data-elements-harmonization-project. Please download the excel sheet in the webpage. This work is based on the PCORTF CDM harmonization. Both Mitra Rocca and I think it would be a good idea to ontologize the excel sheet, as each cell in a row is not equivalent (logically speaking). As this is an open source, so it will be open to anybody who wants to do something about it. FDA has limited sources to pursue this idea, and I think I'd ask this group if anybody wants to volunteer for this effort. The start point will only define the semantic relationships among each cell in the excel sheet. 

Please let me know if you are interested and if you could commit your time to work on this (~1 hour a week during spare time). We'd like to identify a group of 5 people to start with the work. And then ask the community to review and gain input from FDA and related parties. 

Please feel free to provide me suggestions, ideas, or if you know anybody who has started similar work.

[Disclaimer: This email's content hasn't been reviewed by FDA and it doesn't represent FDA's views or policies. It reflects only the views and opinions of myself.] 

Thank you,

Asiyah

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