In
metadata
Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive ...
, a vocabulary-based transformation (VBT) is a transformation aided by the use of a
semantic equivalence statements within a
controlled vocabulary
A controlled vocabulary provides a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. Controlled vocabularies are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems. Controlled v ...
.
Many organizations today require communication between two or more computers. Although many standards exist to exchange data between computers such as
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
or
email
Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...
, there is still much structured information that needs to be exchanged between computers that is not standardized. The process of mapping one source of data into another is often a slow and labor-intensive process.
VBT is a possible way to avoid much of the time and cost of manual data mapping using traditional
extract, transform, load technologies.
History
The term ''vocabulary-based transformation'' was first defined by Roy Shulte of the
Gartner Group around May 2003 and appeared in annual "
hype-cycle" for
integration.
Application
VBT allows computer systems integrators to more automatically "look up" the definitions of data elements in a centralized
data dictionary
A data dictionary, or metadata repository, as defined in the ''IBM Dictionary of Computing'', is a "centralized repository of information about data such as meaning, relationships to other data, origin, usage, and format". ''Oracle Corporation, ...
and use that definition and the equivalent mappings to transform that data element into a foreign
namespace
In computing, a namespace is a set of signs (''names'') that are used to identify and refer to objects of various kinds. A namespace ensures that all of a given set of objects have unique names so that they can be easily identified.
Namespaces ...
.
The
Web Ontology Language (OWL) language also support three
semantic equivalence statements.
Companies or products
*
IONA Technologies
Contivo and Deltab
Liaison Technologies* enLeague Systems
* ItemField
* Unicorn Solutions
* Vitria Technology
* Zonar
See also
*
Controlled vocabulary
A controlled vocabulary provides a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. Controlled vocabularies are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems. Controlled v ...
*
Data dictionary
A data dictionary, or metadata repository, as defined in the ''IBM Dictionary of Computing'', is a "centralized repository of information about data such as meaning, relationships to other data, origin, usage, and format". ''Oracle Corporation, ...
*
Enterprise application integration
*
Metadata
Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive ...
*
Semantic equivalence
*
Semantic spectrum
*
XSLT
External links
Gartner Glossary of TermsGartner definition Vocabulary-based transformation
Gartner Hype Cycle 2003
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vocabulary-Based Transformation
Data management