Objective To transform knowledge organization systems (KOS) about traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) domain into standardized ontologies, in order to achieve the publication, sharing, and fusion of TCM KOS on the Web, and to further improve the organization and management of TCM knowledge. Methods Simple knowledge organization system (SKOS), a technical specification recommended by World Wide Web Consortium, was used to transform TCM KOS into publishable ontologies on the Web. Results Traditional Chinese medicine language system was transformed into an SKOS ontology, which was stored into a knowledge base that could support SPARQL (standard query language of the Semantic Web) query access, and provide concept, terminology, and knowledge services for Semantic Web applications, such as semantic wiki and semantic search via Web service interfaces. Conclusion This research preliminarily verifies the applicability of SKOS in TCM domain, and exemplifies the process of transforming TCM KOS into SKOS ontologies.

Standards of TCM information plays a fundamental and critical role in TCM informatization. In recent years, the standardization of TCM information has made a series of tremendous progress. This article introduced the major work progress of TCM terminological standardization and TCM data standardization in China, and status of TCM information standardization in International Organization for Standardization and World Health Organization. The existing problems in the construction of standardization of TCM information were discussed and suggestions were proposed to solve problems: to build the basic framework of standard system of TCM information; to cultivate professionals for the researches on the international standards of TCM information; to further explore the theories and methods about standardization of TCM information.