The OEKCS team at FAO with the assistance of MIMOS Berhad in Malaysia have released VocBench Version 1.3, a powerful open-source ontology editor and workflow manager.

This version consolidates a number of critical usability fixes identified during trials with an exciting new international, multi-lingual, globally-dispersed user group. This new group of editors manage a widely-used biotechnology glossary that is currently undergoing a thorough revision following a good practices ontological model. The biotechnology team decided to use VocBench to accomplish their work based on its alluring combination of ontology editing and publishing pipeline features.

 

Version 1.3 resolves 34 issues that emerged from working with this new biotechnology community, including  important language-based features that make its multi-lingual tool set ever more comprehensive. For the first time roles and rights can be extended both by ontology and by language, allowing editors to share the same ontology with no danger of editing labels which are not in their language(s) of competence. The validation process has also been enriched by adding important new information on the editing process that assists validators and publishers in making informed decisions about whether or not to approve changes.