A shared ontology is a special kind of ontology that allows multiple Organizations to collaborate on shared workflows. Shared ontologies live under a dedicated shared space created specifically for the workflow. A shared ontology enables resources from multiple organizations to be used in a workflow, whereas an Ontology is private to one Organization and contains resources from that Organization alone.
A shared ontology is automatically created when a new shared space is created. It holds the same Organization markings and role grants as the shared space.