TY - JOUR
T1 - Which methods are the most effective in enabling novice users to participate in ontology creation? A usability study
AU - Zhang, Limin
AU - Yang, Xingyi
AU - Cota, Zuleima
AU - Cui, Hong
AU - Ford, Bruce
AU - Chen, Hsin Liang
AU - MacKlin, James A.
AU - Reznicek, Anton
AU - Starr, Julian
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Producing findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data cannot be accomplished solely by data curators in all disciplines. In biology, we have shown that phenotypic data curation is not only costly, but it is burdened with inter-curator variation. We intend to propose a software platform that would enable all data producers, including authors of scientific publications, to produce ontologized data at the time of publication. Working toward this goal, we need to identify ontology construction methods that are preferred by end users. Here, we employ two usability studies to evaluate effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction with a set of four methods that allow an end user to add terms and their relations to an ontology. Thirty-three participants took part in a controlled experiment where they evaluated the four methods (Quick Form, Wizard, WebProtégé and Wikidata) after watching demonstration videos and completing a hands-on task. Another think-aloud study was conducted with three professional botanists. The efficiency effectiveness and user confidence in the methods are clearly revealed through statistical and content analyses of participants' comments. Quick Form, Wizard and WebProtégé offer distinct strengths that would benefit our author-driven FAIR data generation system. Features preferred by the participants will guide the design of future iterations.
AB - Producing findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data cannot be accomplished solely by data curators in all disciplines. In biology, we have shown that phenotypic data curation is not only costly, but it is burdened with inter-curator variation. We intend to propose a software platform that would enable all data producers, including authors of scientific publications, to produce ontologized data at the time of publication. Working toward this goal, we need to identify ontology construction methods that are preferred by end users. Here, we employ two usability studies to evaluate effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction with a set of four methods that allow an end user to add terms and their relations to an ontology. Thirty-three participants took part in a controlled experiment where they evaluated the four methods (Quick Form, Wizard, WebProtégé and Wikidata) after watching demonstration videos and completing a hands-on task. Another think-aloud study was conducted with three professional botanists. The efficiency effectiveness and user confidence in the methods are clearly revealed through statistical and content analyses of participants' comments. Quick Form, Wizard and WebProtégé offer distinct strengths that would benefit our author-driven FAIR data generation system. Features preferred by the participants will guide the design of future iterations.
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U2 - 10.1093/database/baab035
DO - 10.1093/database/baab035
M3 - Article
C2 - 34156445
AN - SCOPUS:85109057550
VL - 2021
JO - Database : the journal of biological databases and curation
JF - Database : the journal of biological databases and curation
SN - 1758-0463
M1 - baab035
ER -