Codificación y categorización

As discussed in the previous chapter, the task model is encapsulated within the system and is not modifiable, except for the default order of the data entry task. The specialisation process gives a wide degree of freedom to users as to the order in which they specify the elements of the ontology for inclusion in the specialised domain model, allowing users to operate in a way that matches their individualistic working practice and cognitive process.

Whilst ideally the specialisation task should be entirely completed before specimen data is captured, users do not always have time to restart everything over again when alterations to the data to be collected are discovered after data entry has begun in a project. The specialisation task can thus be mixed with the data entry task to allow some level of iterative working practice, revisiting specialising the ontology after entering data for some specimens and discovering additional potentially useful features to capture data about.

6.3.1 Primary specialisation task

The primary specialisation task is the repeated task of adding a specified attribute to the specialised domain model. This is analogous to the adding of ‘characters’ to the proforma as discussed in chapter 4. There is no required order in which attributes are specified, nor is there any requirement that an attribute be fully specified before beginning the specification of another attribute. The user is free to return to previously specified attributes and edit their specialisation.

Specifying an attribute includes finding and identifying the description object and attribute, as well as specialising the attribute by identifying value domains, preferred units, fixed scores, relational and spatial modifiers. The name used for the specialised attribute in the interface can also be altered.

6.3.2 Other supporting tasks

There are a number of other supporting tasks in the specialisation process. Some of these are briefly discussed below. A summary of tasks is given in table 6.2.

6.3.2.1 Check definitions

During the specialisation task at almost any stage, users may seek to check the definitions of the descriptive terms they are using to determine the ontology definition. All description objects, attributes, and value objects have definitions.

Based on the 2nd and 3rd development phases, mouse-over definition access is used to give a quick check or confirmation of a definition for terms the user is currently using or considering using. Invoking a pop-up definition box is more commonly used when either multimedia definition aspects are very important to comprehension (e.g. leaf outline shapes) or where detailed comparison of multiple descriptive terms is valuable such as when a number of similar ontology terms exist.

6.3.2.2 Check for existence of desired terms

When determining how to specify a descriptive concept as one or more specified descriptive attributes, users may desire to check if descriptive terms they know from their own domain knowledge are represented in the ontology.

6.3.2.3 Review specialised domain model

To insure the specialised domain model reflects the user’s intentions, requires reviewing the model as specialised so far. This can be undertaken at any point and should ideally be undertaken before collecting data based upon the final specialised domain model. There are three main alternatives for completing this task.

The first alternative is by using the main specialisation interface (see table 6.1). The second alternative for reviewing is to access a preview of the data entry interface. A tab provides access to data entry screens based upon the current state of the specialised domain model. Although users cannot edit the presentation of the data entry interface directly, this can provide a useful preview of the effects of the data choices the user has made. It also provides a different visualisation of the specialised domain model. Lastly a third alternative review can be made by viewing a XML output of the specialised domain model. As the user must go outside the system, this would tend to be done only near the end, whilst the other review methods would be more likely to be used at any time.

6.3.2.4 Alter default task order

The data entry task model is encapsulated within the system, but one part of it is user modifiable and is presented to users: the default order of data entry tasks. During the data entry stage, each included description object in the specialised domain model is presented to users for data entry. The default order in which the description objects are presented is by a top down, depth first enumeration of the description object hierarchy.

In the taxonomy example this functionality is provided to reflect the working practice of taxonomists, who, within the general task of describing specimens, may want to specify the order in which they describe the particular characteristics of the specimen, to fit with

traditional biological description methodologies (acryptic order). Evaluation during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th evaluation phases consistency show this, unfortunately it was never represented in the angiosperm ontology to give this domain knowledge to the system. Allowing users to alter the order was thus instituted in the 5th development phase.

6.3.2.5 Save and load specialised domain models

Users can save the state of the edited specialised domain model at any time. This saves an XML file to the user’s computer file system. Previously edited specialised domain files can be loaded after the ontology has been loaded to the system. Loading a specialised domain model file can only be done to a specialisation interface based on the same version of the ontology.

6.3.3 Specialisation Task Restrictions

The domain expert cannot directly alter the data entry presentation model (for example by choosing the actual data entry abstract interaction objects, although they can alter the data in the specialised domain model upon which determinations are made by the data entry presentation model). This ensures a modelling split between data determination and presentation, thus avoiding confusion between the two different processes. It also emphasises that the taxonomists do not have to perform the job of designers.