Comparing BioPortal and HeTOP: towards a unique biomedical ontology portal?

Abstract

International audienceThe volume of data in the biomedical field constantly grows. The vast majority of information retrieval systems are based on controlled vocabularies and most specifically on terminologies or ontologies (T/O). These classification structures allow indexing, coding, annotating various types of documents. In Health, many T/O have been created for different purposes and it became a problem to find specific concepts in the multitude of nomenclatures. The NCBO (National Center for Biomedical Ontologies, Stanford University) BioPortal project and the CISMeF (Catalogue et Index des Sites M'edicaux de langue Franc¸aise, Rouen University Hospital) HeTOP portals have been developed to tackle this issue. While both portals are designed to store and make T/O available to the community, they are also very different mainly because of their basic purposes. The present work consists in comparing both portals and in answering the following question: is it possible to merge BioPortal and HeTOP into one unique solution to manage T/O