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UMBEL is a lightweight ontology structure for relating Web content and data to a standard set of subject concepts. The project began in July 2007. Most of its early months were devoted to design and diligence on contributing efforts. The first release of the ontology was in July 2008. The project has been growing quickly ever since.
UMBEL stands for Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer. Umbel-ed flowers, like Queen Anne's Lace or licorice, come from the Apiaceae familiy (what used to be called the Umbelliferae, for "umbels of umbels"). Umbel has the same Latin root as umbrella ( umbra for shade, or umbella for parasol). The name conveys the umbrella-like nature of UMBEL's subject concept structure.
In text references, the UMBEL name is shown in all caps. UMBEL is pronounced like "humble," except without the "h". Its logo is the lower case Century Gothic with the umbel-flower graphic as shown on the masthead.
UMBEL's editors are:
The UMBEL ontology and material are made freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike v. 3.0. Under the terms of this license, you are free to:
Under the following conditions:
UMBEL is based on a faithful but reduced subset extraction of concepts and relationships from the OpenCyc version of the Cyc knowledge base. As such, UMBEL is a lightweight reflection of these sources, but not nearly as capable nor complete.
Use and relations based on UMBEL may therefore not be an accurate representation of what might be obtained in working directly with the source Cyc or OpenCyc knowledge bases.
Our project is most grateful for the ongoing involvement and contributions of Cycorp and the Cyc Foundation in support of UMBEL. However, any errors or omissions in UMBEL are the responsibility of the project alone.
UMBEL sponsorship has been generously provided by:
