Methodology: How the lists were developed

The development effort progressed in several stages: first a pilot project was undertaken to develop the anatomy and then findings lists for Thoracic Radiology. Then committees were convened in 5 other areas (4 anatomical regions plus pediatrics, see list of committees below) to develop anatomy lists (Fall 2005), and then findings lists (Spring 2006).

For each committee, a preliminary list was made, either by the RadLex administrators or the committee chair, based on radiology and/or anatomy texts of that anatomic region. The committee then met to deliberate on terms and organization, with assignments given to individuals or pairs to further edit, expand, restructure, etc. The RadLex administrators then reviewed these lists for apparent structural errors, duplication, misspellings, or any other questionable issues. Usually committee chairs were then asked to mediate any questions that remained. Chairs were given the resulting draft to review. These final lists were posted to the public RadLex web site.

The lists were then annotated for conversion into Protégé. This included marking the types of relationships that hold between a term and its parent, marking comments, and denoting synonyms. Special Protégé scripts were written to accommodate RadLex.