VocPub Editor: A Free and Intuitive Browser Vocabulary Management Tool

The use of controlled vocabularies in the eResearch sector is crucial for enhancing data discovery, integration, and interoperability across diverse datasets and systems. Despite the availability of software to edit and maintain these vocabularies, current solutions often require complex self-management of web servers or the use of sometimes very expensive paid services. Many tools, although built on the Simple Knowledge Organisation Standard (SKOS) data standard, enforce arbitrary and non-contributory rules. In recent times, platforms like GitHub have been favoured for their low barrier to entry and flexibility in managing vocabularies as RDF textual data files. However, this style of management requires a deep understanding of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and specialised technical expertise to create and enforce publication rules using the GitHub platform, making manual editing of the data files both cumbersome and error-prone. VocPub Editor addresses these challenges as a free, user-friendly, browser-based tool designed to streamline the vocabulary management process. It uses the VocPub specification which is a vocabulary publication standard which enforces simple rules for vocabulary metadata and structure. By adhering to VocPub, it ensures that each vocabulary edit is publication-ready, eliminating the need for intricate technical knowledge and manual RDF editing. VocPub Editor empowers editors to manage their vocabularies effortlessly while maintaining SKOS best practices. This significantly enhances management efficiency as well as collaboration. All this will hopefully lower the barrier to vocabulary adoption in the eResearch community.