The profiling ontology covers the concepts needed originally by the User Model building block, but adds a twist to its final purpose. Not only it models users and their characteristics, but also any other basic concept which characteristics are of interest to the universAAL platform: The AAL Services and the AAL Space themselves. This way the ontology is dedicated to model profiles of entities that can be further described through these profiles and further sub-profiles.
== Observations ==
User model depends greatly on the implemented platform and thus must be completely developed to match 100% the needs of universAAL. There have been 3 different kind of profiles identified, the user profile (defining the users of the system), the AAL Space profile (defining the appliances, capabilities and software in the environment) and the AAL Service profile (describing an AAL Service details). These profiles must be harmonised and be fully compatible, as they are a key feature to be used for the proper configuration and operation of the platform.
A hierarchy of profiles and sub-profiles was determined as well. However the appearance of the new implementation of the data representation required a revised design of this initial proposal. Finally it was simplified to represent the basic concepts that can have a profile, and the basic abstract representation of the associated profiles.
These profiles and sub-profiles are mostly empty, with only basic characteristic or parameter to define the profilable entities that can have them. Extra parameters will have to be defined later and added via the extension capability of the new data representation. If some of these parameters come to be considered thoroughly used and stable, it can be decided to include them by default in the profiling ontology itself.
Profile information can be handled in the system by using the [https://github.com/universAAL/context/wiki/Profiling-Server Profiling] and [https://github.com/universAAL/context/wiki/AAL-Space-Server AAL Space] Servers, which make extensive use of this ontology.
