Visualizing the "big picture" of change in NCIt's biological processes

The National Cancer Institute thesaurus (NCIt) is a large and complex ontology. NCIt is frequently updated; a new release is made available approximately every month. Tracking structural changes in NCIt is important for the editors of its content. In this paper we describe a methodology and tool using diff partial-area taxonomies to visually summarize structural changes between two NCIt releases. Diff partial-area taxonomies provide a comprehensible view of the overall impact of the changes. This methodology is illustrated using the Biological Process hierarchy. Specifically, we illustrate how diff partial-area taxonomies reflect change that occurred due to major restructuring of this hierarchy between September 2004 and December 2004. During this time the hierarchy nearly doubled in size and a large portion of the classes were extensively modified. Several kinds of change patterns are identified and discussed.