Publication of ELI ontology version 1.1 - September 2016

The ELI working group has recently published ELI ontology version 1.1. ELI ontology provides a descriptive framework for structuring metadata of legislative resources and publishes them as linked data. ELI ontology is a cornerstone of a ‘legal linked data’, as it describes notably relationships between national and European legislative resources.

The following improvements have been introduced into ELI ontology version 1.1:

1. New types of links between legal resources, such as:

• ‘eli:repeals’: shows that an act repeals, cancels or replaces another act entirely,
• ‘eli:amends’: shows that an act brings substantial changes to another act,
• ‘eli:commences’: shows that an act brings into force another act,
• and other types of links;

2. New descriptive metadata, such as ‘eli:dateApplicability’, ‘eli:jurisdiction’, ‘eli:number’;

3. A new category ‘eli:LegalResourceSubdivision’ to define sub-parts of an act (articles and paragraphs);

4. More precise definitions of properties.

A detailed list of improvements can be found here: http://publications.europa.eu/mdr/eli/version_history.html​​ .

ELI, based on the conceptual model FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Resources), is able to identify with precision each conceptual level of a legislative resource (a whole act, a specific and provisional version of an act, a given version in a particular file format, etc.). This descriptive model is the result of collaboration and discussions within the ELI Task force. The model can also be used in different legislative systems.

More information can be found on the publishing page of ELI ontology: http://publications.europa.eu/mdr/eli/​​ .