title: An approach to compare bio-ontologies portals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  main biomedical information retrieval systems are based on controlled vocabularies and most specifically on terminologies or ontologies (T/O). These classification structures allow indexing, coding, annotating different kind of documents. Many T/O have been created for different purposes and it became a problem for finding specific concepts in the multitude of existing nomenclatures. The NCBO (National Center for Biomedical Ontologies) BioPortal and the CISMeF (Catalogue et Index des Sites Médicaux de langue Française) HeTOP projects have been developed to tackle this issue.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  the present work consists in comparing both portals.
  
  
  METHODS
  we hereby are proposing a set of criteria to compare bio-ontologies portals in terms of goals, features, technologies and usability.
  
  
  RESULTS
  BioPortal and HeTOP have been compared based on the given criteria. While both portals are designed to store and make T/O available to the community and are sharing many basic features, they differ on several points mainly because of their basic purposes.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  thanks to the comparison criteria, we can assume that a merge between BioPortal and HeTOP is possible in terms of functionalities. The main difficulties will be about merging the data repositories and applying different policies on T/O content.
authors.affiliation: CISMeF & TIBS, LITIS EA4108, Rouen University Hospital, France.
authors.forename: Julien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Grosjean
authors.affiliation: CISMeF & TIBS, LITIS EA4108, Rouen University Hospital, France.
authors.forename: Lina F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Soualmia
authors.affiliation: LIRMM, Université Montpellier 2 & CNRS, Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: Khedidja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bouarech
authors.affiliation: LIRMM, Université Montpellier 2 & CNRS, Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: Clément
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jonquet
authors.affiliation: CISMeF & TIBS, LITIS EA4108, Rouen University Hospital, France.
authors.forename: Stéfan J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Darmoni
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D064229:Biological Ontologies; D066289:Data Curation / Q000379:methods*; D004282:Documentation / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods; D012660:Semantics