RE: [topicmaps-comment] skills to create topic maps

["Tsao, Scott" <scott.tsao@boeing.com>]

	From: Bandholtz, Thomas
	Most of the user communities have some thesaurus or classification
to start with... Could you give me some more details about your project? We
are very interested in real-life use-cases and community requirements. 
Here is a senario for you the think about:
There are two existing glossaries with terms and definitions that are
applicable to the same domain, but they were developed independently by two
separate groups of subject matter experts (myself included). I would like to
construct a topic map to show the relationships among terms appreared in
both glossaries. After the initial topic map is constructed and made
visible/navigable by those domain subject matter experts, I will hopefully
get feedback regarding how the initial topic map should be modified in order
to provide a controlled vocabulary for this domain, because we were supposed
to come up with an agreed-upon controlled vocabulary to classify/categorize
information assets to facilitate information sharing and knowledge discovery
within and across communities of interest for this domain of knowledge. This
refined topic map can then serve as published subjects for the construction
of new topic maps that are needed for organizing and navigating various
information assets in the domain.
Now, these are some practical questions I have:

1) Both of those two existing glossaries are available in HTML, and one of
them is also available in MS Word. What is the easiest way to create the
initial topic map, with the attendant user interface for easy navigation?
2) After the initial topic map is refined, how could they be
converted/transformed into a set of published subjects to serve as the
controlled vocabulary for the creation of new topic maps?
3) What is the best approach to create the new topic maps that will provide
the desirable means of organizing and navigating various information assets
in the domain? (assuming that those information assets will stay independent
of the topic maps) Any corrections, comments, and suggestions regarding the
above will be very much appreciated.

Scott Tsao
IS Architecture & eBusiness
The Boeing Company