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Vocabulary and Terminology Standards

Marjorie M.K.Hlava

President

Access Innovations, Inc.

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What are they for?

• Accuracy

• Disambiguation

• Recall

• Precision

• Relevance

• Removing Noise

• Increasing Hits

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Vocabulary Control

• Define Scope of term (meaning)• Equivalence between synonyms

– And Quasi Synonyms– Single concept– Cars / Automobiles

• Distinguish homographs– Mercury – – Planet, metal, myth, car

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Nice to have

• Equivalence – synonyms - Rogets

• Associative – related terms

• Hierarchies – taxonomy view

• History – development of the term

• Notes – help the user

• Notation – different way to sort

• Display – how to show the terms

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Where do they come from?

• ANSI / NISO– National Information Standards Organization

• ISO– International Standards Organization

• TC 46• TC 37

• W3C– World Wide Web Consortium

• US OMB• IFLA

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Effectiveness of Indexing

• Indexing as a means for identifying and retrieving content objects depends upon a well constructed indexing language

• Improves precision by defining the scope of the terms

• Improves recall by allowing different terms for the same concept

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Vocabulary Control

• Eliminate ambiguity

• Control synonyms – insure a term has only one meaning

• Establish relationships

• Test and validate terms

• Gather the linguistic relationships in one place

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Facets

• Bottom up approach to organization• Find the parts of the knowledge• Useful in

– Developing areas– Interdisciplinary fields– Multiple hierarchies– Where location of CO is not important– Where several groups have ownership of the

whole…

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Facets

• Multiple attributes for a single object– Topic

• By composition• By use

– Format– Audience– Intellectual level

• Could be fields, • Could be facets

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Interoperability

• Same content – different domains• Different vocabulary – same domain• Degree of specificity / granularity• Handling of synonyms• Search methodology

– Z39.50– Pre coordinated– Post coordinated

• Literary warrant established in vocab used• Intended purpose (academic vs lay public)

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Interoperability

• Merging vocabularies

• Merging databases

• Indexing using single vocab

• Federated searching

• Mapping or crosswalks– Decide on master vocab

• Authority records

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Z39.19 -2006 – Controlled Vocabularies - What’s new?

• Interoperability• Synonym Rings• Facet Analysis• Taxonomy• Semantic Relationships• Glossary• Web Format• Changes in terminology

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Other methods - Zeng• Derivation Modeling• Translation and

Adaptation• Satellite controlled

vocabularies• Node or leaf linking

S1

Tree structure of thesaurus

= leaf node

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Tree structure of thesaurus

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Other methods Section 10.8

• Switching• Linking Through a

Temporary Union List • Linking Through

Controlled Vocabulary Servers

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Linked display

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Semantic Network

• Use to cluster terms from many sources• Create an underlying structure for all to map to• Group terms to conceptual scheme• Define types of concepts• Define types of relationships• Generate synonym rings for retrieval

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Semantic network for clustered terms from a combined

vocabulary – UMLS portion

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Semantic network showing types of relationships among concepts - UMLS

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Lexical Database

• Terms from many vocabularies

• Create clusters of concepts

• Allow many kinds of relationships– IsA, HasA, synonyms, hierarchical, etc

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Multiple senses for the same noun in a lexical database

• bridge, span -- (a structure that allows people or vehicles to cross an obstacle such as a river or canal or railway etc.)

• bridge, bridge circuit -- (a circuit consisting of two branches (4 arms arranged in a diamond configuration) across which a meter is connected)

• bridge -- (something resembling a bridge in form or function; "his letters provided a bridge across the centuries")

• bridge -- (the hard ridge that forms the upper part of the nose; "her glasses left marks on the bridge of her nose")

• bridge -- (any of various card games based on whist for four players)• bridge -- (a wooden support that holds the strings up)• bridge, bridgework -- (a denture anchored to teeth on either side of

missing teeth)• bridge, nosepiece -- (the link between two lenses; rests on nose)• bridge, bridge deck -- (an upper deck where a ship is steered and the

captain stands)

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ISO TC 46 – SC 6 or 9

• Controlled vocabulary and other information standards• ISO 5127 – Information and Documentation –

Vocabulary• ISO 2788-1986 Guidelines for the establishment and

development of monolingual thesauri = BS 5723:1987• ISO 5964-1985 Guidelines for the establishment and

development of multilingual thesauri = BS 6723:1985• NEW - BSA 8723 - Parts 1 – 4 Stella Dexter Clarke

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British Standards - BS 8723

• Structured vocabularies for information retrieval – Guide

• Part 1: General• Part 2: Thesauri• Part 3: Vocabularies other than thesauri• Part 4: Interoperability between

vocabularies• Part 5: Interoperability with applications

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ISO TC 37

Scope of ISO TC 37: Standardization of principles, methods and applications relating to terminology and other language resources.

• TC 37/SC 1 - Principles and methods• TC 37/SC 2 - Terminography and lexicography• TC 37/SC 3 - Computer applications for

terminology• TC 37/SC 4 - Language resource management

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Sample StandardsPrinciples of concept-oriented terminology and data categories:

ISO 704:2000 Terminology work - Principles and methodsISO 860:1996 Terminology work - Harmonization of concepts and terms ISO 1087-1:2000 Terminology work - Vocabulary - Part 1: Theory and applicationISO 1087-2:2000 Terminology work - Vocabulary - Part 2: Computer applications ISO 10241:1992 Preparation and layout of international terminology standards ISO 12200:1999 Computer applications in terminology - Machine-readable terminology interchange format (MARTIF) - Negotiated interchangeISO 12616:2002 Translation-oriented terminographyISO/TR 12618:1994 Computer aids in terminology - Creation and use of terminological databases and text corpora ISO 12620:1999 Computer applications in terminology - Data categoriesused to create glossaries

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W3C

• OWL – Web Ontology Language• RDF – Resource Description Format• Topic Maps• SKOS - Simple Knowledge Organization

Systems

• Which community to serve?• Build on the current standard• Might make this link next

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Other things to watch

• Other W3C and ISO areas

• Support groups– Blogs– Communities of Practice

• SIMILE

• Web 2.0 activities

• WSDL – Web Services Digital Library

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Other Relevant ISO & W3C Standards

For translation, terminology and applied linguists go to:

http://appling.kent.edu/ResourcePages/LTStandards/Chart/standards.chart.htm#Ontology

•Markup Languages •Metadata Resources •Character Coding •Access Protocols and Interoperability•Content Creation, Manipulation, and Maintenance •Authoring Standards •Text and Content Markup •Translation Standards •Terminology and Lexicography Standards •ISO TC 37 Standards •Terminology Interchange Standards •Controlled Language Standards •Taxonomy and Ontology Standards •Corpus Management Standards   •Locale-Related Standards

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SIMILE

SSemantic emantic IInteroperability of nteroperability of MMetadata and etadata and IInformation in unnformation in unLLike ike EEnvironmentsnvironments

Forming a data reference for open source Forming a data reference for open source taxonomiestaxonomies

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Web Services – Web 2.0

• Acts as middleware • Allows migration from legacy systems • Uses HTTP remote procedure calls• Allows interaction between distributed, loose coupled

and reusable software components• Openness:

– Machine readable description available – WSDL – Web Services Digital Library– accessible via public (UDDI-) Registries

• Will help integrate “taxonomies into web presentations of data

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Summary

• Standards for Vocabulary now come from many places. There are 19 main ones to watch

• If you have a current standard compliant thesaurus you can probably implement it in the Web 2.0 arena

• Vocabulary control improves search– Precision and accuracy– Recall and relevance

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Thank you for your time

Marjorie M.K. HlavaPresident

Access Innovations / Data Harmony505-998-0800

mhlava@accessinn.com

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: xrefer Research Mapping

: xrefer Research Mapping

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Data Harmony View - VxInsight

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Scenario: Web Services based Infrastructure for Digital Libraries

UDDI-Registry

Existing web services

NewsserviceScientificdatabase

OAI based document harvester

XML/SOAP XML/SOAP XML/SOAP

Network-node 1

XM

L/SO

AP

WSDL-descriptions

Network-node 2

XM

L/SO

AP

Network-node n

XM

L/SO

AP

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DL-Services (logical view)

Service (user‘s perspective)

Types of services

Types of material

Metamodel

Functionality modeland implementation

Service Provision(Web-Service)

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Framework (logical view)

XML-Repository

Metamodelof Services

Support Services

Service <<facade>>

WSDL-Service Support

Generator

Service-Localization

Dispatcher

Webserver(Cocoon2)

Java-classes (framework application)

Service creation and

assembly Transaction- management

Data processedby Services

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For services and software

• Contact• Marjorie Hlava• Jay Ven Eman• Access Innovations, Inc• Data Harmony

– Thesaurus Master, MAI, XIS– Auto indexing and content Management

• 505-998-0800• mhlava@accessinn.com

j_ven_eman@accessinn.com