Development Of Knowledge Organization Systems Research Articles

A multi-layer framework for semantic modeling

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce a multi-level framework for semantic modeling (MFSM) based on four signification levels: objects, classes of entities, instances and domains. In addition, four fundamental propositions of the signification process underpin these levels, namely, classification, decomposition, instantiation and contextualization.Design/methodology/approachThe deductive approach guided the design of this modeling framework. The authors empirically validated the MFSM in two ways. First, the authors identified the signification processes used in articles that deal with semantic modeling. The authors then applied the MFSM to model the semantic context of the literature about lean manufacturing, a field of management science.FindingsThe MFSM presents a highly consistent approach about the signification process, integrates the semantic modeling literature in a new and comprehensive view; and permits the modeling of any semantic context, thus facilitating the development of knowledge organization systems based on semantic search.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of MFSM is manual and, thus, requires a considerable effort of the team that decides to model a semantic context. In this paper, the modeling was generated by specialists, and in the future should be applicated to lay users.Practical implicationsThe MFSM opens up avenues to a new form of classification of documents, as well as for the development of tools based on the semantic search, and to investigate how users do their searches.Social implicationsThe MFSM can be used to model archives semantically in public or private settings. In future, it can be incorporated to search engines for more efficient searches of users.Originality/valueThe MFSM provides a new and comprehensive approach about the elementary levels and activities in the process of signification. In addition, this new framework presents a new form to model semantically any context classifying its objects.

Integrating Practical and Epistemic Actors: Co-Constructing a Knowledge Organization System to Address Housing Insecurity in West Philadelphia

In response to colonial legacies of divisiveness and paternalism underpinning the development of knowledge organization systems (KOS) and thus impeding their appeal, accessibility, and usefulness to diverse stakeholders (Castleden, Morgan, and Lamb, 2012), this case study explores the challenges and opportunities inherent to the design of a malleable, sustainable KOS as part of an mHealth tool called Map the Gap. Map the Gap intends to reduce the burden of housing insecurity in West Philadelphia. By examining the active cultivation of communal ties between the “epistemic” and “practical” actors (Callon, 4, 2004) who substantiate Map the Gap, as well as the sociotechnical infrastructure which shapes and is shaped by such ties, the processes of collaboration underpinning functionality decisions are delineated. This paper reflects on the way KOS sociotechnical structures defy and challenge traditional academic and community models of research and development, thus requiring a unique, temporally-conscious embracement of select and dynamic collaborations. By elucidating and evaluating the considerations and practices central to Map the Gap, we seek to yield a template for cultivating healthy KOS sociotechnical structures.

Towards a General Conception of Warrants: First Notes

The areas of knowledge are organized around the identification of their terms of reference and the relationships established between them. This is the rational basis of -among others- the methodology for the development of knowledge organization systems. The authority from which to select, evaluate or revise the terminology of these systems is established in relation to any of the twenty-one warrants (literary, cultural, etc.) that have been proposed and studied unequally and autonomously in the literature of the area. This paper intends to introduce initial notes and comments to advance towards an overall conception of the warrant notion. For this purpose, the expression “warrant” is studied as a word of the general language as well as a term of specialized languages. Then, the scope of application of the warrants is established. Next, each warrant is placed in one of the approaches proposed by Hjørland to categorize theories and methods (empiricism, rationalism, historicism and pragmatism). From the above, some lines of research problems are identified. A typological table that includes data on all the warrants established until now is proposed, and the first conclusions are drawn.

Theoretical investigation about the notion of parts and wholes

Within the realm of Information Science, information retrieval is a seminal issue. Knowledge organization systems are instruments that organize knowledge by connecting concepts through semantic relations for purposes of information retrieval. One of the most important of these semantic relations is the so-called part-whole relation. In this paper, we revisit some peculiarities of part-whole relations that are often overlooked by the Information Science community. In order to do this, we provide a theoretical investigation of two perspectives used to explain the notion of parts and wholes: a formal perspective, which is based on the philosophical study usually called mereology; a non-formal perspective, which is based on the linguistic study about a relation called meronym. We discuss the relationship between these perspectives through the issue of transitivity, which is an important property of part-whole relations for information retrieval. We find that these perspectives, although distinguished, are somehow complementary. The results of our analysis suggest that the choice for either a formal or a non-formal perspective could be based on a pragmatic criterion in the scope of development of knowledge organization systems. We conclude by offering some considerations correlating two main sorts of these systems, namely ontologies and thesauri.