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A national terminology service?

A national terminology service?. Lorcan Dempsey VP Research and Chief Strategist, OCLC JISC Terminologies Workshop, London, February 13, 2004. Overview. Overview. JISC Contexts Examples Issues. A partial presentation!. Assumption: M2M services with a human face.

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A national terminology service?

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  1. A national terminology service? Lorcan DempseyVP Research and Chief Strategist, OCLC JISC Terminologies Workshop, London,February 13, 2004

  2. Overview

  3. Overview • JISC • Contexts • Examples • Issues A partial presentation! Assumption: M2M services with a human face. Assumption: discussion is about potential contours of a national terminologies service, rather than solving complex community discussions about vocabularies.

  4. Contexts A changed digital environment

  5. I know it when I see it … Structured representations of Personal and organizational names Concepts/categories Place names Audience levels Resource types Species names …. Labels: KOS (knowledge organization systems) Authorities Taxonomies Ontologies … Different worldviews, experience, expectations, legacy! Different motivations: research, service, …

  6. The big change … Then: ‘information assets’ were primary objects of interest. Subjects, etc, were seen as attributes of assets. Systems built to reflect this. Now: We manage multiple entities, their representations and relationships: Assets Works; manifestations; copies Rights Collections Services Concepts Names Places … … …

  7. Simple contrived example! Web services Validate Automatic class. Navigation Exchange Mapping Object metadatarepository KOS service Name authority service • Examples: • Discovery environment • Editing environmente.g Dspace • Routing • Objects • Collections • Services • Terms • Users • Institutions • Rights • Schemes • Rules • Version Control Dataassets • Ingest • Export • Search • Update • ID Creation • ID Check • Version Control • Analysis • Validation • Stats data services • Validation • Relation • Synchronization • Resolution • Authorization • Format Conversion Application services • Search • Request • Question • Navigate • Alert • Use Tracker (IFM) • Workflow

  8. Terms and term sets are resources Release value in a web environment Webulated URI for names, concepts, … Concepts/names/etc are ‘ex-citable’ Traversable relationships Build services on top of this May be manifest through several services E.g. URI for a Dewey numberInfo:ddc/22/eng//004.678 Example services Mappings Caption, etc Navigate Bind classes of resources based on ‘link’ Authors Libraries Popular?

  9. Example Some preliminary OCLC developments (by request)

  10. Knowledge org systems Plethora of vocabularies Incompatible approaches to encoding Few connections Education GEM Subjects, ERIC Thesaurus, LCSH, JACS, CIP (Classification of instructional programs) Cultural Heritage AAT, Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM) Subjects & Genre Terms Not built for the web Link to concepts

  11. Terminology services at OCLC:‘Webulating’ knowledge organization Goal: to offer accessible, modular, web-based terminology services. Make vocabularies more available for Metadata creation Searching … Refine and extend mappings Represent vocabularies and mappings in major encoding and distribution standards, e.g., MARC, Zthes, TIF, OAI Prototype custom web services as appropriate to insert functionality in different workflows

  12. Zthes interface generated from WSDL

  13. Issues Some banal observations

  14. JISC et al role • Act where it makes sense to do something once rather than many times • Remove redundancy from local operations • Create shared resources • Capacity build • Economies of scale and scope • Concentrate expertise and development effort • Terminology services lend themselves to this approach

  15. Communities are the same and different E-science … Learning … Library … Cultural heritage … Biodiversity … Usage scenarios Capacity Expectations View of the world

  16. Identify potential wins • Motivating use cases • Cross searching • Navigation/browsing • Metadata creation • Routing • … • Address compelling interest within capable communities • Emphasise diversity rather than universality (remember different values, legacy, …) • Scope will influence choices (research, prototype services, meet real needs) • Research into patterns of use and demand.

  17. The past is another country .. • Need to think differently – using terminologies as resources in a distributed network environment calls forward different way of thinking • Unplug and play • Making functionality available within multiple workflows. • Bilateral development responsibility • Provider and consumer have development burden.

  18. Avoid techeology • Techeology • substitution of ideology for engineering • manifest in dominance of acronym advocacy over service advocacy

  19. Recombinant growth • Do not overspecify • Make several simple services available which encourage experimentation • For: • Online m2m and h2m interaction • Exchange • Selective harvest • Compare Google and Amazon APIs • Registry – webulation.

  20. Opportunity … Thank you, http://www.oclc.org/research/

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