Vocabulary and Common Data Elements (VCDE) Newcomer Information

Mission and Goals

The Vocabulary and Common Data Elements Workspace is a cross cutting workspace responsible for evaluating and integrating systems for vocabulary and ontology content development, as well as software systems for content delivery. They are also responsible for developing standards for the representation of ontologies a nd vocabularies used throughout the caBIG™ system, as well as assessments of existing systems proposed for use within the caBIG™. This Workspace also has some limited responsibility for vocabulary and ontology content development, when specific and required content does not exist in a form usable by caBIG™. As a Cross Cutting Workspace, it is expected that they will interact with many of the other Workspaces as part of their activities.

The materials below provide an overview of the workspace:

• caBIG™ Compatibility: Cross-Cutting Workspaces  (from the Newcomers Session at the Annual Meeting in February 2007)

You can see who is involved in this workspace on the list of VCDE Participating Organizations.

How It Operates

This workspace welcomes participation in the workspace and SIG activities from individuals interested in the workspace mission and goals. Participant activities include attending regular teleconferences and periodic face-to-face meetings, commenting on products under development or review and conducting more in-depth work in pursuit of workspace objectives. Anyone with an interest in the activities of this workspace is welcome to attend teleconferences and sign up for the listserv.

If you are interested in learning more you can join the next teleconference by emailing the workspace lead to get the toll free dial-in number and access code. The VCDE Contact Information section provides contact information for the workspace lead.

Teleconferences: Workspace participants meet regularly via teleconference to discuss issues and devise solutions. The VCDE Workspace meetings are listed on the Schedule. To see what this workspace has been working on recently, you can review the Meeting Notes from past teleconferences.

Listserv: Between teleconferences the NIH VCDE Listserv is the primary means of collaboration for participants. Discussions, teleconference agendas and dial-in information as well as cancellations are sent out on the listserv on the so signing up is a good way to keep up-to-date.

Face-to-Face Meetings: In addition to the teleconferences the VCDE workspace gathers for face-to-face meetings periodically over the course of the year. These meetings provide the opportunity for members to tackle specific issues that are best accomplished together in real time, receive updates, discuss accomplishments, upcoming tasks and future goals. These are announced in What's BIG This Week and distributed through the caBIG™ Announce Listserv.

What have they done (products)

Ontology Development

• Completed Ontology Development Projects (Nutrition for Cancer Research, Mouse/Human Anatomy Mapping)

Vocabulary Surveys

• Vocabulary Surveys  (from March 2005)

Compatibility and Certification

• caBIG™ Compatibility Guidelines v2  The purpose of this document is to provide guidelines on caBIG™ compatibility to caBIG™ participants and interested stakeholders. This document provides a set of definitions that caBIG™ participants can use to evaluate the maturity level of potential caBIG™ systems and applications. This is a living document that will evolve to keep in line with the emerging standards and requirements for interoperability that are being defined by the caBIG™ community. This is the current version. [v2  7/7/2005]  
• caBIG™ Silver Compatibility Review Process   The majority of developer projects in caBIG™ are developing to Silver level compatibility. This section describes the review process for caBIG™-funded developer projects and lists the status of products (passed review, under review).

Policies, Guidelines and Whitepapers

• Adoption of External Standards   This paper examines some examples of external standard adoption efforts in caBIG™. We investigate the issues that were faced in these efforts, what approaches were taken, and what caBIG™ and external tools were employed. [v1  9/8/2006]
• Data Standards   Process used by the Vocabulary and Common Data Elements Workspace to review and facilitate the caBIG™ review of CDEs submitted for consideration as standard in caBIG™ . Includes the governance model, review process, candidate standards, accepted standards
• Default Datatypes in the caDSR White Paper   The overall goal of this white paper is to recommend a set of standard datatypes to be used in the caDSR in order to promote interoperability between applications. This will entail an evaluation of the datatypes currently registered in the caDSR, as well as standard datatypes used by the broader software community.  [v1  1/22/2007]
• Large Scale Harmonization White Paper   A joint Strategic Planning/Vocabulary and Common Data Elements Workspace task force was convened by the Strategic Planning group to examine this question, and a preliminary report was issued in the summer of 2006. The problems statements, analyses, and recommendations within this task force report were uniformly well-received. The present white paper is an expansion of the task force document to include more background and recommendations to address large scale harmonization in caBIG™.  [final  11/20/2006]
  • caBIG_Model_Harmonization_Preliminary_Report  [8/16/2006]
• Vocabulary Services on caGrid White Paper   This white paper describes a strategy and technical approach for the integration of vocabulary services for caGrid. The paper discusses functional areas and the technical approaches to specific use cases described in § 3- Use Cases and Technical Approach. Priorities and timelines are described for each use case. These priorities and timelines will influence caGrid 1.x and LexBIG 1.x development.  [v1  10/19/2006]

Under Development

Vocabulary Standard Governance and Review Processes  Describes the criteria established by the Vocabulary and Common Data Elements Workspace that every caBIG “standard” vocabulary should satisfy and ontologies that are currently being reviewed against the criteria.

VCDE Tool Development Projects  Describes two ongoing tool development projects:

• LexBIG: The LexBIG vocabulary services represents a compressive set of software and services to load, publish, and access vocabulary. Cancer Centers can use the LexBIG package to install NCI Thesaurus and NCI Metathesaurus content queryable via a rich application programming interface (API). LexBIG services can be used in numerous applications wherever vocabulary content is needed.
• Compatibility Review Software: A software package designed to semi-automate the Silver Level Compatibility review process. Currently under development with delivery slated for Q2 2007.