Taxonomy Management Tools - Synaptica

Factiva Synaptica® Vocabulary and Metadata Management System is the tool used to build the WAND Taxonomies and is easily integrated with any WAND vocabularies.

Synaptica is the result of nearly a decade of continuous research and development driven by power-users in the information community. An unparalleled set of features has evolved to meet the uncompromising demands of taxonomy and authority file experts:

  • Manage glossaries, dictionaries, lexicons, taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies and name authority files
  • Supports ANSI/NISO Z39.19; ISO 2788 & ISO 5964
  • Simple search or power search modes
  • Standard hierarchical, associative and equivalency relationships
  • Customizable semantic relationship types and behavior rules
  • Meta vocabulary clusters and crosswalk mapping
  • Multiple categories for a single term
  • Expandable hierarchies and relationships
  • Approval & candidate term statuses
  • Customizable data entry templates and rules
  • Dynamically enforced rules-based logic
  • Collaborative and compartmentalized portals
  • Role-based granular permissions
  • Robust scalable enterprise-class architecture
  • Web-GUI for intranet/extranet deployment
  • DBMS deployment on Oracle and SQL Server
  • COM and Database APIs for systems integration
  • Logical delete and restore of terms
  • User ID and date-time stamping
  • Online reports using report wizards
  • Bulk import and validation functions
  • XML and CSV export formats
  • Unicode UTF-8 support for non-western character sets

Web-based User Interface
The entire Synaptica application has a web-based user interface enabling access by location independent knowledge workers. A “portal” system allows project teams to access subsets of the vocabularies with user functional privileges controlled by 12 permissions levels from read-only through super-administrator. A suite of online report wizards allows users to create alphabetical and hierarchical reports as well as CSV and XML formatted exports.

On-the-fly Customization
Another of Synaptica’s strengths is the ability to customize the system in minutes. An extensive menu of administrators’ tools, all fully accessible via the web-UI, allows users to: create new vocabulary files; define the metadata elements; create new kinds of semantic relationship types; configure rules-bases to govern semantic and taxonomic house-rules; customize display formats and perform data import functions.

Enterprise Scalability
Synaptica provides an enterprise-class solution for authority file and controlled vocabulary management. The system uses a library of COM business objects, which can be accessed through the web-application or via an API. The system supports SQL Server and Oracle databases scalable for multiple users and millions of terms and relationships. A library of stored procedures supports native database API integration.

Onsite or Remote-Hosting
Synaptica is a client-server web application that can be installed locally on a client’s intranet or extranet server. Alternatively, Factiva can host client systems on our secure servers, which means the client needs no special equipment. In either case, systems use password-protected accounts, so users can access all of Synaptica's features from anywhere in the world using standard personal computers and web-browsers.

Continuous Improvement
Synaptica is being continuously enhanced. New features recently added or under development include: visualization and global editing tools, a web-services layer, and expanded versioning options

Hardware Requirements
Synaptica’s server-side requirements are:

  • Windows 2000/2003 Server operating system
  • Internet Information Server (IIS) web server
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000+ DBMS, -or
  • Oracle 9i+ DBMS running on Windows or UNIX

The client-side requirements are any PC or Mac with Microsoft IE or Netscape 6.0 or higher.