EVS deals with a wide variety of terminology content, which is produced, exchanged and processed through many different formats, data structures, and interfaces. This requires a variety of specialized terminology tools and systems, able to handle complex data and apply sophisticated logical inference, business rules, and other processing. Many of these requirements are shared with other producers and users of terminology, and where possible EVS works collaboratively with other partners to develop shared, open source terminology tools and technology. Key EVS terminology tools are summarized as follows:
- EVSRESTAPI Tools - An API that EVS offers connected to a native triple-stored backend terminology server with Elasticsearch indexes. It allows searches that capture the complete logical semantics of underlying terminologies. These tools utilize the EVSRESTAPI:
- EVSExplore - EVS Explore is the next-generation cloud-based EVS terminology browser. It utilizes the new EVSRESTAPI which is built around a native triple-store backend with Elasticsearch indexes that captures the complete logical semantics of underlying terminologies in a fully searchable way. It was designed to be a high-performance terminology browser that provides an upgraded technical stack and improved user interface from our legacy Term Browser.
- Features of EVS Explore include a robust term searching capability, concept details including definitions, synonyms, relationships, mappings, and a hierarchical relationships display.
- While the EVS Explore browser homepage displays NCI Thesaurus (NCIt); NCI Metathesaurus and all other EVS hosted terminologies are search and browsable in the application.
- EVS Explore also provides a Term Suggestion Form for a user to provide community feedback and contributions to both NCI and EVS partner terminology products.
- NCIt Report Exporter - The NCIt Report Exporter is an application that allows EVS users to extract data from the NCI Thesaurus (NCIt) triple store database using the EVSRESTAPI. This application provides users flexibility in downloading concept data from NCIt.
- Users are able to select terms from the NCIt by entering one or more NCIt concepts. The user can choose which properties from the enumerated concepts to download, select a file format, and download as a file.
- Users are also able to generate reports by entering a list of concept codes or choosing the concept code of a top node of the NCIt hierarchy, thereby selecting an NCIt branch to resolve. Hierarchies may be downloaded to the users chosen level, which can include the entire hierarchy.
- EVSExplore - EVS Explore is the next-generation cloud-based EVS terminology browser. It utilizes the new EVSRESTAPI which is built around a native triple-store backend with Elasticsearch indexes that captures the complete logical semantics of underlying terminologies in a fully searchable way. It was designed to be a high-performance terminology browser that provides an upgraded technical stack and improved user interface from our legacy Term Browser.
- NCI Protégé editing software is based on Stanford's open source Protégé tool, which is widely used for editing biomedical terminology and ontologies. NCI further developed Protégé plug-ins to meet EVS requirements and business rules.