Developing a web-based SKOS editor. Issue 1 (December 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Conway, Mike; Khojoyan, Artem; Fana, Fariba; Scuba, William; Castine, Melissa; Mowery, Danielle; Chapman, Wendy; Jupp, Simon
• Is Part Of: Journal of biomedical semantics. Volume 7:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 8
• Publication Date: 2016-12
• Subjects: Semantics -- Periodicals; Medicine -- Research -- Periodicals; Biology -- Research -- Periodicals; Computer systems -- Periodicals; Bioinformatics -- Periodicals; 570.285
• DOI: 10.1186/s13326-015-0043-z
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2041-1480

Abstract

Abstract Background The Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) was introduced to the wider research community by a 2005 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) working draft, and further developed and refined in a 2009 W3C recommendation. Since then, SKOS has become thede facto standard for representing and sharing thesauri, lexicons, vocabularies, taxonomies, and classification schemes. In this paper, we describe the development of a web-based, free, open-source SKOS editor built for the development, curation, and management of small to medium-sized lexicons for health-related Natural Language Processing (NLP). Results The web-based SKOS editor allows users to create, curate, version, manage, and visualise SKOS resources. We tested the system against five widely-used, publicly-available SKOS vocabularies of various sizes and found that the editor is suitable for the development and management of small to medium-size lexicons. Qualitative testing has focussed on using the editor to develop lexical resources to drive NLP applications in two domains. First, developing a lexicon to support an Electronic Health Record-based NLP system for the automatic identification of pneumonia symptoms. Second, creating a taxonomy of lexical cues associated with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) diagnoses with the goal of facilitating the automatic identification of symptoms associated with depression from short, informal texts. Conclusions The SKOS editor we have developed is — to the best of our knowledge — the first free, open-source, web-based, SKOS editor capable of creating, curating, versioning, managing, and visualising SKOS lexicons.