VoCol: An integrated environment to support version-controlled vocabulary development

Abstract

Vocabularies are increasingly being developed on platforms for hosting version-controlled repositories, such as GitHub. However, these platforms lack important features that have proven useful in vocabulary development. We present VoCol, an integrated environment that supports the development of vocabularies using Version Control Systems. VoCol is based on a fundamental model of vocabulary development, consisting of the three core activities modeling, population, and testing. We implemented VoCol using a loose coupling of validation, querying, analytics, visualization, and documentation generation components on top of a standard Git repository. All components, including the versioncontrolled repository, can be configured and replaced with little effort to cater for various use cases. We demonstrate the applicability of VoCol with a real-world example and report on a user study that confirms its usability and usefulness.