The relationships that a user is allowed to create are defined by an ontology definition which is stored in TMCore and can be mapped to SharePoint content items, ensuring that users only create relationships that are valid against the ontology. The new NPCL Schema Editor tool provides a visual editing environment in Visual Studio 2005 for the creation and editing of this ontology, and for generating features that install the ontology, any supporting taxonomy as well as the necessary SharePoint content types and fields.
This ontology-drive approach enables the Information Architect to start with a map of the "what" of the portal information architecture:
- What types of information and documents exist.
- What are the key non-document concepts that drive the business and the way people access and use information.
- What types of relationships exist between documents and non-document concepts.
All of this information is captured in the ontology using our integrated Visual Studio NPCL Schema Editor.
In the next stage of the portal design process, the Information Architect determines the "how" of the architecture
- How are the different information and document types represented and managed in the portal.
- How are different user groups to be provided with access to the relevant information.
- How are users to find information and navigate around the portal.
From the NPCL Schema Editor, the information architect can create mappings between the ontology and the system of Content Types and Fields provided in SharePoint. The result of this is a MOSS feature that can be easily installed to a new site collection to allow the site designers to begin to implement the portal architecture and branding.
The work of the Information Architect is also eased by the variety of portal search and navigation tools that are provided with the TMCore SharePoint Module. These include integration with the standard portal text search; related topic navigation controls that can display specific semantic relationships starting from the current portal context of the user; faceted search that enables slice-and-dice style searching for portal content; and social tagging features that enable users to develop a folksonomy for the classification of portal content.