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. 2008 Sep-Oct;15(5):687–700. doi: 10.1197/jamia.M2531

Table 2.

Table 2 An Overview of the Criteria for the Three Secondary Components

Criteria
Process Management
Coordination

  • 12 There is a team responsible for the management of the maintenance process.

  • 13 The maintenance team is easily accessible.

  • 14 The response time of the maintenance team for proposals and questions is short.
Persons involved

  • 15 Different disciplines participate in the maintenance team, such as:

  • Users/domain expert because of their knowledge of the domain of the TS,

  • Terminology expert because of their knowledge of the structure and architecture of TS,

  • Software Engineers because of their knowledge of technical possibilities and functions of the TS,

  • Coordinators are responsible for the management of the maintenance process.
Security

  • 16 Only qualified people are able to make changes in the TS.

  • 17 Access to the TS is secured, using:

  • Identification, i.e., identity registration,

  • Authentication, i.e., identity verification,

  • Authorization, i.e., access rights verification.
Change specifications
Change policy

  • 18 The codes that are assigned to concepts are context free and non- significant, e.g. random.

  • 19 Concepts that are no longer in use are not removed from the TS. Instead, these concepts are kept in the TS and are marked obsolete.

  • 20 In case of removal of a concept (which is not in accordance with the criteria), the code assigned to that concept is not reused.

  • 21 Within the TS there are no limitations regarding the number of concepts, hierarchic levels and terms that can be added.
Change Operation

  • 22 There is a ‘change model’ that specifies all types of changes (e.g., delete, add, adjust, etc.) that can occur in the TS in concordance with the change policies.
Editing tool
Functions

  • 23 The maintenance team uses an editing tool for the maintenance process.

  • 24 The editing tool is secured with login name and password.

  • 25 The editing tool contains a module for collecting proposals.

  • 26 The editing tool contains a module to support the consensus process.

  • 27 The editing tool supports the input of changes into the TS.

  • 28 The editing tool supports automatic validation controls.

  • 29 The editing tool generates reports for documentation.

  • 30 The editing tool supports managing different versions of the TS.

  • 31 The editing tool supports distribution of new versions.

TS = terminological system.