Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
sions, change tracking, and access policies. WebProtégé has some additional
collaboration features that are not supported in the rich client.
The notes and discussions feature is available in the Notes portlet that can
be added to any of the tabs in the user interface, enabling those tabs to show
the notes attached to the current selection in the tab (see Fig. 12.7). For
example, if this portlet is used in the Classes tab, it will show the notes
attached to the currently selected class; if it is used in the Properties tab, it
will show the notes attached to the currently selected property, and so on.
To help users identify discussion activity in the ontology, the class tree shows
an indication that a class or its subclasses have notes attached to them by
adding a comment icon next to the class name (see Fig. 12.7). The notes and
discussions are shown in a threaded view. It is also possible to delete a note
or to edit a note if the user is the creator of that note and no replies have
been added to it. Once a note is not relevant anymore, users may archive a
note with a simple mouse click.
In addition to attaching notes to entities in the ontology or to the ontology
itself, WebProtégé supports adding notes at the level of a triple. For example,
a user may add a note to a textual defi nition of a class that is represented as
an annotation property on that class. This feature allows much fi ner control
over the discussions and allows users to focus on a particular issue for an entity.
In a manner similar to that of the rich client, change tracking in WebProtégé
is available as a complete change log or as the log of changes for a particular
entity in the ontology. The Change history portlet shows the change history of
the selected entity in the tab, whether it is a class, property, or individual.
WebProtégé also provides a Change statistics tab that displays information
about the changes in each branch of the tree. This feature provides a very
useful tool for a project manager, who then can assess the level of group activ-
ity in each of the branches of the ontology. The change statistics can also be
fi ltered to show only the changes for a specifi c time interval or for a specifi c
set of users.
The watching and notifi cations features allow users to track more closely
the changes and discussion activity in the ontology. A user may indicate his or
her interest in an entity from an ontology (e.g., a given class) or an entire
branch of the ontology by “watching” it. To watch an entity or a branch, the
user can simply click on the Watch toolbar menu. Once the user logs into
WebProtégé, the Watched entities portlet will display the changes that occurred
in the watched entities and branches. The user may also confi gure the
WebProt é g é notifi cation service to receive e-mails whenever changes to the
watched entities occur.
Many collaborative projects have as part of their workfl ows a reviewing
phase: once the users have completed the content authoring in the ontology,
reviewers will inspect the content and make recommendations. The Reviews
tab in WebProtégé supports a simple reviewing process. A user with adequate
privileges may request a review for an entity in the ontology. Once he or she
has selected reviewers from a list of predefi ned reviewers, the request will be
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