1. Nikkia Anderson Sr. Information Specialist Information International Associates supporting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency nanderson@iiaweb.com Environmental Terminology Services Creating, Maintaining, & Governing EPA Terminology January 13, 2009 Taxonomy Tuesday Meeting Library of Congress - CRS

2. Outline About Information International Associates (IIa) IIas Terminology Expertise EPAs Terminology System & Services Supporting communities involved in Environmental Terminology Management Creation and Management of Terminology Resources Creating, Maintaining, and Governing Vocabularies in Synaptica Interoperability between EPA systems Web Services Terminology Services Read-only Interface Next Steps

3. About IIa Information Management Company since 1988 Two decades of experience providing innovative solutions to government, academia, the private sector, and international entities Supports the full information management life-cycle Services include: Library Services & Digital Collections Management IT Services & Advanced Information Management Biodiversity Informatics Military Education & Training Management Scientific & Technical Informatics** Open-Source Intelligence Information Centers & Clearinghouse Management GSA corporate schedule

4. IIas Terminology Expertise Provided support since 2005 for the reengineering of EPA Terminology Reference System Supported the development of the EPA Web Taxonomy Project Currently supporting the development of the EPA Office of Research & Development Taxonomy Contributed to the development of and/or maintenance of controlled lists/taxonomies/thesauri for the World Bank, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, National Biological Information Infrastructure, National Agricultural Library, U.S. Geological Survey, Science.gov, and National Institute for Literacy Provide support services and expertise to the CENDI Terminology Task Group and Ecoinformatics/Ecoterm Working Group

5. What is the EPA Terminology System & Services? Terminology Management – a standards-based repository of terms important to EPA and its partners with user interfaces to enable creation, storage, maintenance, harmonization, and distribution of various types of terminology types Collaborative Stewardship – a framework for the development of workflows and processes for submitting, commenting, gaining consensus and approval of terms Access – search and discovery services allow EPA users and partners to find, use and download terminology Automated Services – Web interfaces and services allow terminologies from Terminology Services to be shared with the Agency and partner systems

6. Supporting communities involved in Environmental Terminology Management Component of the EPA System of Registries which enables discovery, understanding, and sharing of environmental data Provides individual access to terminology resources and automated machine-to-machine interaction Provides EPA enterprise with a system to build vocabularies on their own Contains over 200 distinct vocabularies (not all publicly available) Environmental regulations and laws EPA Program glossaries and taxonomies GEneral Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus (GEMET)

7. Creation and Management of Terminology Resources EPA uses Synaptica KMS tool to develop and manage the vocabularies provided through Terminology Services Supports standard relationship rules with customization Workflow capabilities based on access level and term status Supports customized metadata creation Import/Export capabilities via multiple report options Supports RDF/SKOS, RDF/OWL, XML, MS Word, MS Excel, HTML, and CSV output Global updates Supports alphabetical and hierarchical views

8. EPA Terminology Services & System Data Model Based on ANSI/NISO Z39.19 standard for thesauri Modified to support glossaries and term lists Meta Data Vocabulary & Relationship Definition & Rules Terms Subjects, Names, etc. Extended Attributes Notes fields, etc. Relationship Links Used with permission of Dow Jones. This diagram is proprietary and not for redistribution.

9. Creating, Maintaining, Governing Vocabularies in Synaptica

10. Vocabulary Metadata Active Flag Vocabulary Unique ID Taskviews Vocabulary Short Name* Vocabulary Name Display Name Alternate Name Vocabulary Type* Category Description Language Publishing Organization Original Source Namespace/URL for Source Version Steward Steward E-mail Source Creation Date Source Modification Date Terms & Conditions Client System

11. Vocabulary Types Glossary and Key Word List - Terms from a subject, field or project which may have definitions. Taxonomy - Terms organized into broader-narrower relationships based on some presumed natural order. Thesaurus - Terms related by broader-narrower, synonymous, associated (related) and other more specific relationships based on international or national standards.

12. Creating an Vocabulary Project, Program, Subject Topic or Organization specific Provided Terminology Development Guidelines Synaptica stores vocabularies as Object Classes Object class must reside in one or more taskviews Controls workflow Permissions Linking terms across object classes Extended attributes, relationship types, and categorization can vary per object class

13. Relationship Types Relationship Type Code Relationship NameDefinition USEUse The relationship between a non-preferred term and a preferred term for the same concept. UFUse For The relationship between a preferred term and a non-preferred term for the same concept. CBCoded By Full Term for reciprocal coded value CFCode For Coded value for the reciprocal full term ABAbbreviated By Full term associated with reciprocal abbreviation AFAbbreviation For Abbreviation for reciprocal full term RTRelated Term Identifies terms with associated meanings NTNarrower Term Relationship between a term and a subordinate term BTBroader Term Relationship between a term and its superordinate term SYSynonym Identifies terms with identical or equivalent meaning. FNTTFacet Name Top Term Relationship between a facet term and its actual top term (Note: this field was created for interoperability purposes with the read-only interface) ATTActual Top Term Relationship between a top level term in a taxonomy and its facet name term (Note: this field was created for interoperability purposes with the read-only interface)

14. Adding Terms to a Vocabulary Duplicate Check Term Status Active Deleted Deactivated Approval Status Candidate Pending Machine Loaded Approval Extended Attributes

15. Searching and Browsing Vocabularies

16. Reporting

17. Interoperability between EPA Systems

18. Web Services Synaptica's Web services API layer provides access to system functionality and enables full integration with external applications Provides listing of taskview profiles and vocabularies Supports term and relationship searching, browsing and editing Supports scheduled reports

19. EPA Terminology Services http://www.epa.gov/sorhttp://www.epa.gov/sor …. Click on Terminology Services http://www.epa.gov/sor

20. Next Steps Create new vocabularies Continue identifying version updates for vocabularies currently in Terminology Services Continue to add definitions and other metadata content Working to enable concept management

21. For more information … Please contact: Michael Pendleton ETSS/Terminology Services Project Manager Data Standards Program U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Phone: (202) 566-1658 pendleton.michael@epa.gov