Guidelines and Principles for Developing Search and Browse Vocabularies May 31, 2003 Rice University Houston, TX

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Guidelines and Principles for Developing Search
and Browse Vocabularies May 31, 2003Rice
UniversityHouston, TX

• Amy J. Warner, PhD
• awarner_at_lexonomy.com

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Epicurious.com
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Navigation/Taxonomy
Vehicle Brands Vehicle Parts Cars Vehicle
Accessories MR2Spider Carriers
Celica Bicycle Carriers
Matrix Ski Carriers
Avalon Roof Racks Camry Solarus
Splash Guards Camry
Security Systems Prius Tires
Corolla ECHO
SUVs/Vans Engines Transmissions Land
Cruiser Sequoia
4 Runner Sienna Highlander
RAV4 Trucks Tundra Tacoma
Celica Brochure
Camry Brochure
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Synonym Rings
Cholesterol Blood Cholesterol Serum
Cholesterol Good Cholesterol Bad Cholesterol LDL
. . .
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Medline
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MeSH UMLS
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Controlled Vocabulary Defined

• A subset of natural language.
• A list of preferred and (sometimes)variant terms.
• With semantic relationships (hierarchical and
  associative) (sometimes) defined.
• Used to tag document attributes (describe
  facets).
• Topic / Subtopic
• Audience
• Language
• Form
• Or can be used to create labeling scheme for
  navigation.

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Cornerstones of Vocabulary Control

• Use unambiguous labels/search terms.
• Make distinctions among labels/search terms
  clear.
• Make choices about wording and specificity of
  labels/search terms based on user testing and on
  size of collection.
• Use other semantic relationships (hierarchical,
  associative) if necessary to organize large lists
  of labels/search terms.

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Continuum of Vocabulary Control
Less More

• Synonym
• Control
• USE/Used for relationship Vehicle
  crashes USE Vehicle
  collisions Vehicle collisions
  UF Vehicle crashes
• Synonym Rings Vehicle collisions
  Vehicle crashes
  Crashes Collisions

• Hierarchical
• Relationships
• Broader/Narrower Terms Vehicle
  collisions NT Truck
  collisions Truck collisions
  BT Vehicle collisions
• Browse Categories Vehicle safety
  Truck safety Truck
  collisions Vehicle safety
• Site Index
• Taxonomies

• Associative
• Relationships
• Part/Whole
• Cause/Effect
• etc. Vehicle parts RT Vehicles
  Vehicles RT Vehicle parts

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Steps in Controlled Vocabulary Construction

• Group terms by subject (facet analysis)
• Link synonyms and variants. Synonym Rings
  Vehicle collisions
  Vehicle crashes
  Crashes
  Collisions
• Identify broader and narrower terms. Taxonomies
  / Hierarchies
• Identify related terms. Thesauri

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Purposes of Standard

• Base choices on best practice.
• Base choices on known principles.
• Foster interoperability.

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Current NISO Thesaurus Standard

• Guidelines for the construction, format, and
  management of monolingual thesauri Z39.19-1993.
• Not a technical standard, but a set of
  guidelines.
• Emphasizes search thesauri.
• Emphasizes postcoordinate retrieval.
• Used mainly for abstracting and indexing
  services.
• Does not put the standard in context.

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Why Revise

• Not revised since 1993.
• Number of downloads high, reflecting interest.
• Does not take the web environment into account.
• Navigation schemes are controlled vocabularies
  too.
• Is out of date in terms of computing technology
  in general
• Software for managing thesauri has advanced.
• Software for leveraging thesauri though an
  interface has advanced.
• Currently little attention paid to user testing.

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Term forms

• Currently
• Emphasizes rigid rules for grammatical form.
• Emphasizes short phrases as terms.
• Suggested revision
• Loosen rules on grammatical form.
• Allow for longer, more complex phrases.
• Rationale
• Software can perform automatic stemming.
• Navigation schemes are more precoordinate.

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Semantic Relationships

• Current standard
• Only accounts for explicit equivalence
  relationships.
• Hierarchical relationship only allowed for
  genus-species relationship, with a few
  exceptions.
• Associative relationship only allowed across
  categories.
• Proposed revision
• Provide guidelines for choosing unambiguous
  labels.
• Provide guidelines for loose, browse categories.
• Rationale
• Labeling schemes and pick lists often do not
  account for explicit synonymy relationships.
• Hierarchical navigation schemes need to be less
  rigid.

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Browse Categories
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Usability Testing

• Current standard
• Discusses users but does not include guidelines
  for testing with users.
• Proposed revision
• Provide guidelines for open card sort testing of
  high level categories.
• Provide guidelines for closed card sorting of
  term groups under high level categories.
• Rationale
• User testing important consideration for choose
  terms and term relationships.

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Display

• Current standard
• Emphasizes print copies of thesauri.
• Screen display section oriented toward display of
  print copy.
• Proposed revision
• Oriented more toward displays of vocabularies
  that only exist in digital format.
• Rationale
• Most web vocabularies do not have print
  counterparts.

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Interoperability

• Current standard
• Does not address issues associated with
  interoperability
• Proposed revision
• Will address major issues and problems associated
  with interoperability, including multiple
  languages
• Rationale
• Being able to share information within and among
  organizations

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Construction and Maintenance

• Current standard
• Emphasizes maintenance problems in print
  vocabularies.
• Discusses software that manages stand-alone
  vocabularies.
• Proposed revision
• Advance standards for changing, adding, deleting
  terms automatically.
• Provide guidance for software that is connected
  to information retrieval systems.
• Rationale
• Software has advanced significantly.

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Process for Revising Standard

• Appoint editor.
• Appoint advisory group.
• Draft revision.
• Discuss drafts with advisory group.
• Vote on final draft by NISO board.

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Editor Advisory Group

• Amy Warner, lexonomy.com
• Vivian Bliss, Microsoft
• Carol Brent, ProQuest
• John Dickert, U.S. DoD
• Lynn El-Hoshy, Library of Congress
• Emily Fayen, SDC liaison
• Patricia Harpring, Getty
• Stephen Hearn, American Library Association
• Sabine Kuhn, American Chemical Society/Chemical
  Abstracts
• Pat Kuhr, H.W. Wilson
• Diane McKerlie, Design Strategy
• Peter Morville, Semantic Studios
• Stuart Nelson, National Library of Medicine
• Diane Vizine-Goetz, OCLC
• Marcia Lei Zeng, Special Libraries Association

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Progress to Date

• Agreement on scope of revision.
• Agreement that guidelines should be placed in
  context.
• Agreement that guidelines should be educational
  as well as prescribing best practice.
• Agreement that guidelines should be forward
  looking in terms of new technologies.
• Agreement to write guidelines for elements and
  features that all vocabularies have in common,
  then consider their differences.
• Survey conducted to determine use of standard,
  other standards, software.

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Other Players

• Communication with editor of British Standard.
• Communication and work with W3C to address issues
  of implementation of controlled vocabularies.

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Relationship with Semantic Web and OWL

• Semantic Web is an ontological framework.
• Both terms in the ontology and the relationships
  between them are standardized using OWL (Web
  Ontology Language).
• Both the terms and the relationships are deep
  semantically.
• This is a structure into which shallower terms
  provided by using Z39.19 could be inserted.
• This would enhance interoperability because
  although we would not have complete agreement on
  vocabularies, we would have agreement on an
  effective structure for exchanging them.

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Contact Me
Amy J. Warner awarner_at_lexonomy.com www.lexonomy.
com