Project Name: HILT (High Level Thesaurus Project)

Project URL: http://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/

 
Project Description: The goal of the project was to set up a pilot terminology services for the Joint Information Systems Company Information Environment. The terminologies server would be the basis of a community process that would develop, maintain and gradually improve interoperability of subject descriptions by mapping between terminology sets, and that the aim of the project was to determine specific design requirements based on this approach.

Provisional Checklist

Please use the following form to evaluate semantic interoperability projects.

1. Types of data being integrated

Does the project have:

(a) different controlled vocabularies in same language?

(b) different controlled vocabularies in different languages?

(c) different classification schemas (e.g., DDC, UDC, LCC)?

If yes, which ones?

(d) controlled vocabularies combined with classification schemas?

(e) different metadata framework schemas (e.g., XML, MARC, Dublin Core)?

If yes, which ones? DDC, LCSH, the UNESCO

(f) different communication protocols?

(g) other:

2. Autonomy and Integrity of Constituent Parts

(a) Is standardization, reconciliation, or conversion of semantic data reversible?

(a.1) Can precoördinated strings, once filtered or deconstructed for semantic matching, later be put back together again?

(b) Is full complement of metadata and indigenous subject hierarchies preserved?

If so, how? .     

(c) Does project rely on principle of least common denominator?

If so, many data sets may be able to coexist in database, but given resulting stripped-down or ‘dumbed-down’ resource descriptions, the database may no longer serve the interests of readers. (cf. recently cited problems with Dublin Core²⁰ How does the use of least common denominator effect the quality of service?

(d) How is data stored: gathered into a union catalog (e.g., American Memory Project, NSDL), vs. distributed database? Distributed database

(e) How are metadata (including SI links) stored?  (e.g., via authority records, concordance tables, a central switching language, semantic networks, lexical databases, semantic layers, etc.) Concondance tables

3. Reconciliation of heterogeneous vocabularies

(a) How is correlations established when a single term in one source has no equivalent term in the other? Mapping form terms

(b) Certain vocabularies are highly structured and hierarchical, while others contain terms lacking any structure at all aside from serial numbers or other unique identifiers. How are these differences reconciled? In general a single DDC pre-coordinated class would map to a Boolean combination of terms in a thesaurus or other post-coordinate target vocabulary

(c) How are conflicts resolved when an established heading in one vocabulary matches a cross reference in other vocabularies? (E.g., Tumors is an established LCSH heading, but in MeSH it is a cross reference to Neoplasms; and vice versa)

Because of the many provisions for synthesis within DDC, the number of possible classes is indeterminately large. It would be impossible to create all possible combinations and map them to other schemes. Mapping would therefore have to be done by starting from each term in each of the other vocabularies, and finding the DDC classes that contained the concept represented by that term. This would not provide the required mappings where DDC classes had to be represented by combinations of terms in the other vocabularies.

(d) If multiple vocabularies are used in a single bibliographic record, and the headings from such vocabularies are identical (after normalization), how are duplicate retrievals handled? Unknown

4. Effective and Efficient Resource Discovery (Precision and Recall), Satisfying User Needs

(a) Does project provide high or satisfactory levels of precision and recall?

Can be precoordination (b) To what extent does project rely on precoördination?

If mostly post-coordinate, then:

i) by what means is recall maximized?

ii) by what means is precision maximized?

(d) Does project provide faceted approach (facilitating polysemy) while retaining option for browsable hierarchy (facilitating navigation)?

(e) Are the following objectives and functions supported in the S.I. environment?

i) Locate entities in the system via surrogates (find)

ii) Identify a surrogate that matches an entity (collocate)

iii) Select an entity appropriate to a user’s need via surrogates (choice facilitation)

iv) Obtain access to the entity via the system and its surrogates (acquisition)

v) Navigate the system and its surrogates (navigation)

(f) Has developer released beta version for general testing?

(g) Have user satisfaction surveys been conducted?

5. Ease of Use (this is actually part of our definition, i.e., SI should function “without special effort by the user,” (where “users” include information creators and managers, and end-users)).

(a) Intuitive interface for data entry, searching, browsing, etc.?

(b) Automate validation, mapping, metadata extraction, etc., as much as possible?

(c) Availability of documentation?

6. Long-term viability

(a) Master plan for life-cycle management and data migration?

(b) Reliance on open-source international standards versus proprietary standards?

(c) viable business model (e.g., not based exclusively on research grant with likely expiration)?