Reviewing the vocabulary (ontology)

Two kinds of term

The vocabulary (ontology) has two layers. Shared terms are used by every project and cannot be changed from inside one study. Project terms belong to your project alone, and new suggestions arrive there.

A term has a type, a name, an optional definition and a review status. Its synonyms are the spellings found in real papers; each can be reviewed, and each can be switched on or off for matching.

Reviewing a suggestion

Suggestions arrive when a mention in a paper matches nothing known. The review page shows how often the term was mentioned and up to three examples of the surrounding text, because a synonym can only be judged in context: "PPI" is pea protein isolate in one paper and a proton-pump inhibitor in another.

• Approve a synonym only if it is unambiguous within your project’s scope.
• A term with one mention and no examples is usually a reading mistake, not a concept.
• Switching off matching for a synonym is gentler than deleting the term, and can be undone.

Outside identifiers are never made up

A term may carry an identifier from a public vocabulary or database. These are optional and are never generated. If nobody supplied one, the field stays empty, because an invented identifier looks like a citation and points to the wrong thing or to nothing.

Vocabulary is part of study design

Deciding whether "gel strength" and "hardness" are the same measurement is a scientific decision that affects every value you extract. Record it once in the vocabulary so that everyone applies it the same way.