VocBench is a web-based, multilingual, collaborative development platform for managing and sharing reference data and controlled lists of codes and terms used to organise information. With persistent URIs, managed concepts are correctly referenced in any domain. Developed in a context neutral way as an open-source project, it can be deployed or further developed for any sector wanting to have authentic reference data/codes made available for information systems and human users.
Reference data, such as code lists and authority tables, means data that are used solely to characterise or relate to other data. They are fundamental building blocks of most information systems. Using common interoperable reference data is essential for achieving interoperability.
What is VocBench?VocBench featuresWhen is this solution for you?What does VocBench offer you?Get startedDocumentationOpen source communityGet involvedTo the ENDORSE exchange platform |
What is VocBench?
Originally released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Artificial Intelligence Research Group of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, VocBench is a reusable open-source solution whose development is managed by the Publications Office of the European Union. It is the most mature OSS platform for advanced thesaurus management and the only existing system providing in a single offer combined support for OWL ontologies, SKOS(/XL) thesauri, Ontolex-lemon lexicons and generic RDF datasets: its full compliance with W3C standards makes it a perfect platform for the evolution of many organisations and authorities towards production and publication of Linked Open Data.
Licensed under the BSD 3-clause, it provides a solution to centralise the management of controlled code and term lists used by your public administration to support interoperability.
The Publications Office of the European Union can provide an access to a corporate instance of this application to interested professionals working for the EU institutions and agencies (contact: OP-VOCBENCH@publications.europa.eu).
VocBench features
Implemented by the Publications Office of the European Union to originally manage EuroVoc, the EU multi-lingual thesaurus with more than 7,000 concepts in 24 languages, it now hosts an ever-expanding set of vocabularies maintained by EU institutions and agencies.
Users can register and become trusted editors with admin approval. VocBench supports many different user roles, all with different and fine-grained rights. While available data can be freely browsed on the EU Vocabularies website, unregistered users will have access to another application, ShowVoc, by the end of 2021 to simply navigate available data and benefit from additional features.
The project is open source, so it can be downloaded (see the "DOWNLOAD RELEASES" button above) and installed.
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The VocBench 3 development is followed by the Semantic Interoperability Community (SEMIC), which is supported by the Action on Promoting semantic interoperability amongst the European Union Member States of the Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (ISA²) Programme. The Semantic Interoperability Community develops solutions to help European public administrations perform seamless and meaningful cross-border and cross-domain data exchanges. If you are interested in the former versions of the VocBench application too, visit this page. |
When is this solution for you?
When you need to manage words and phrases to index content and/or to retrieve content through browsing and searching, and to co-manage and share them.
Reference data, in particular, can be used:
- in data exchange between applications to uniquely reference some ‘thing’,
- to define sets of permissible values for a data field, or
- to provide a reference or context for the data being exchanged.
With VocBench, you can provide a central access point that allows labels and descriptions for controlled code and term lists in general, and reference data in particular, to be easily looked up by humans or retrieved by machines.
Furthermore, it supports organisations in managing and consistently updating reference data, so that reference data are not duplicated nor change or simply disappear over time, while all code versions remain traceable and properly documented.
What does VocBench offer you?
By using VocBench, you can:
- avoid common errors such as entering synonyms or spelling mistakes when filling in online forms
- facilitate internationalisation of user interfaces by providing multilingual labels
- ensure semantic interoperability when exchanging data between systems and applications
- foster the collaborative maintenance of reference data and controlled code and term lists and foster their re-use
- manage controlled vocabularies according to semantic web standards and linked open data principles
Get started
Get the latest code from the VocBench website.
Video URL
Former versions of VocBench are available here.
Documentation
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Open source community
The application, which was already released under the BSD 3-clause, is officially published to foster the creation of a community helping to improve and maintain the VocBench application.
Join the VocBench community and make suggestions, help fix bugs, improve documentation, or further extend code!
Use it to:
- report a problem,
- propose a new feature or an improvement to the existing functionality,
- start a discussion or raise a question.
Get involved
Feedback, comments and questions related to VocBench3 (should it be at conceptual or technical level) are welcome (OP-VOCBENCH@publications.europa.eu).
To the ENDORSE exchange platform
