The NCBO BioPortal project has implemented several features that support Value Set artifacts needed for the CEDAR program. The Value Sets provide a user-friendly way to search, create, and modify controlled collections of terms that can be used to satisfy entries in CEDAR templates.
This feature represents a significant change for the BioPortal software, which until now managed ontologies on a “batch submission” basis. A single ontology term in BioPortal can not be changed by itself, but must be changed by submitting an update to the containing ontology. These changes can take some time to process, which limits their usefulness for the real-time user environment desired for CEDAR.
With the Value Sets feature, users can submit a new or modified Value Set to a BioPortal API, and the changes will be immediately accessible to the users with access to the Value Set. This opens up possibilities for CEDAR users managing large numbers of controlled vocabularies—which can be loosely thought of as “bags of terms”—with very little friction for users.
The CEDAR software is being built to leverage the Value Sets service in BioPortal, by allowing users to find and select Value Sets and their terms, in addition to selecting ontologies and their terms. In addition, the ability to quickly modify Value Sets will let CEDAR users manage their own Value Sets, and eventually propose changes to existing value sets (under controlled conditions). This will give CEDAR much more flexibility in its ability to specify controlled sets of terms for its metadata templates.