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    Enterprise Vocabulary Services
    Enterprise Vocabulary Services

     

    NCI Enterprise Vocabulary Services (EVS)

     

     

     

     

    Distribution List. Up to date information and messages concerning the EVS are sent out to a distribution list hosted by the NIH. Please subscribe to the list at http://list.nih.gov/archives/ncievs-l.html

     

    Introduction. The NCI EVS is set of services and resources that address NCI's needs for controlled vocabulary. The EVS Project is a collaborative effort of the Center for Bioinformatics and the NCI Office of Communications. The NCI Thesaurus, which is a biomedical thesaurus created specifically to meet the needs of the NCI, is produced by the NCI EVS project. The NCI Thesaurus is provided under an open content license.  The EVS Project also produces the NCI Metathesaurus, which is based on NLM's Unified Medical Language System Metathesaurus supplemented with additional cancer-centric vocabulary. In addition the EVS Project provides NCI with licenses for MedDRA, SNOMED, ICD-O-3, and other proprietary vocabularies.

     

    Documentation. As part of the caCORE 2.0 release, we are publishing a Technical Guide and a User’s Guide containing material that covers all of caCORE including an overview of the EVS and information on how to download the September 2003 version of the NCI Thesaurus in Ontology Web Language (OWL), eXtensible Markup Language (XML) or flat file format.

     

    Implementation. The EVS vocabulary services are implemented as Oracle relational databases accessed through Apelon server software. The NCI Thesaurus is a semantically modeled cancer-related terminology built using description logic. It is made available on the Internet using Apelon DTS server software. The NCI Metathesaurus is a database of many biomedical terminologies, mapped where possible to NCI Thesaurus terms and shared conceptual meanings. It is made available on the Internet using Apelon Metaphrase server software. Both the DTS and Metaphrase servers have proprietary APIs. NCICB has extended the functionality of both servers, including concept-level history support for NCI Thesaurus. NCICB has wrapped the proprietary Apelon APIs in our open caBIO API. The open caBIO API provides access to both the standard and enhanced capabilities of our vocabulary servers. The EVS Package contained in the caBIO component of caCORE 2.0 provides an integrated, fully supported standard means of accessing all the capabilities of the EVS servers.

     

    EVS Curation. EVS is a partnership between the NCI Office of Communications and the NCI Center for Bioinformatics. The EVS Project facilitates the standardization of vocabulary across the Institute and the larger cancer biomedical domain. We are taking a collaborative approach to this challenge. In addition to formal governance, provided by the NCI Vocabulary Executive Group and outside experts, collaboration with current and prospective users of EVS services is a major emphasis. At present a number of NCI and affiliated organizations are ongoing collaborators in defining EVS content. In addition, we are active in standard development organizations, interagency efforts to develop public domain vocabulary products, and software. As opportunities arise, the EVS Project and NCICB engage in NCI-wide harmonization initiatives addressing how vocabulary is used to code, retrieve and aggregate information.

     

    Downloads. The content of the NCI Thesaurus is available for download in ASCII flat file format, in Ontology Web Language format and in Apelon's proprietary Ontylog XML format. The NCI Thesaurus is provided under an open content license. Also a description of the semantics of the NCI Thesaurus is available at the download site.

     

    Tools and Access. Web browsing of the NCI Thesaurus and several other public terminologies is provided at the NCI Thesaurus Web site. Browsing of the NCI Metathesaurus is provided on a second Web site.

     

    Also, NCICB is supporting development of an Ontology Web Language tab for the open source ontology development tool Protégé. The OWL Tab will enable others to extend or otherwise adapt the NCI Thesaurus in OWL format to local needs.

     

    Those wishing to develop software that calls on the NCI EVS services should use the caCORE API.  The caBIO API found in the caCORE is the supported mechanism to interface user-developed software to the EVS servers. Contact ncicb@pop.nci.nih.gov or at http://ncicbsupport.nci.nih.gov/sw/ to request technical support or additional information about the NCI EVS Project.

     

     

     

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