If you are using the ontology, please cite its IRI (https://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/bco.owl).
Please cite the original PLOS ONE paper: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089606 or the more recent book chapter: http://ebooks.iospress.nl/volumearticle/49542
The BCO supports the interoperability of biodiversity and biodiversity related data, including data on museum collections, environmental/metagenomic samples, and ecological surveys. A key aspect of the BCO is distinguishing among material samples (i.e. specimens), observing processes, and data about either of those entities.
The BCO covers distinctions between individuals, organisms, voucher specimens, lots, samples, the relations between these entities, and the processes governing the creation and use of "samples". Also within scope are properties including collector, location, time, storage environment, containers, institution, and collection identifiers.
A slightly outdated 12 minute overview of the BCO is available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j37IH9PIeaA.
The Biological Collections Ontology (BCO) is part of the OBO Foundry library and attempts to conform to OBO Foundry Principles
Please join the BCO Google Groups mailing list: bco-discuss@googlegroups.com. You can browse the list at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/bco-discuss.
The latest stable release of the BCO is always available from http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/bco.owl.
Older releases are availabe via their purls using the form http://purl.obolibrary.org/bco/release/$releasedate
The editors' version of BCO can be downloaded directly from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BiodiversityOntologies/bco/master/src/ontology/bco-edit.owl. This version is subject to change and should be used with caution.
The repository was moved to this location from https://code.google.com/p/bco/ in September 2014. Much older versions of the ontology can be viewed at the biocode-commons project at http://bco.googlecode.com/git/src/ontology/bco.owl.