Summary
Objective:
Can social computing efforts materially alter the distributed creation and maintenance
of complex biomedical terminologies and ontologies; a review of distributed authoring
history and status.
Background:
Social computing projects, such as Wikipedia, have dramatically altered the perception
and reality of large-scale content projects and the labor required to create and maintain
them. Health terminologies have become large, complex, interdependent content artifacts
of increasing importance to biomedical research and the communities understanding
of biology, medicine, and optimal healthcare practices. The question naturally arises
as to whether social computing models and distributed authoring platforms can be applied
to the voluntary, distributed authoring of high-quality terminologies and ontologies.
Methods:
An historical review of distributed authoring developments.
Results:
The trajectory of description logic-driven authoring tools, group process, and web-based
platforms suggests that public distributed authoring is likely feasible and practical;
however, no compelling example on the order of Wikipedia is yet extant. Nevertheless,
several projects, including the Gene Ontology and the new revision of the International
Classification of Disease (ICD-11) hold promise.
Keywords
e-Health - biomedical informatics - health informatics - education - capacity building
- complex adaptive systems - information and communications technology (ICT) - applied
clinical informaticians - AMIA Global Partnership Program
