Unified Astronomy Thesaurus

Transcription

1 Unified Astronomy Thesaurus Bringing Together People, Terms, and Organizations to Classify Infinity...and Beyond! Justin Soles, McGill University Katie Frey, John G. Wolbach Library Data Harmony User Group Meeting February 20, 2013

2 Agenda Context and History Unified Astronomy Thesaurus (UAT) Update Process User Feedback and Interest Thesaurus Tools

3 Context & History Scientific controlled vocabularies are nothing new Each discipline has its own vocabulary: MeSH (Medicine) IEEE Thesaurus (Engineering) PACS (R.I.P.)

4 Context & History Major vocabularies for Astronomy & Astrophysics: Astronomical Subject Keyword list Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme (PACS) International Astronomical Union (IAU) Thesaurus So if scientific & astronomical vocabularies are so common, why is UAT special?

5 Context & History Summary of astronomy/astrophysics vocabs: Astronomical Subject Keywords Term Count: 374 Top-level concepts: 13 Vocabulary type: List w/a loose hierarchy Main use: Indexing Update Frequency: biannually (approx.) Notes: last updated Oct (AAS website) PACS (Astro. sections) IAU-93 Thesaurus 589 2, level hierarchy Thesaurus Indexing Reference biannually 1993, 1995 retired in 2010 (AIP website) officially adopted by IAU in 1993

6 Context & History Q: IAU-93 thesaurus is much bigger and more structured than PACS or Astronomy Journal keyword list, so why isn't it used for article indexing?

7 Context & History Q: IAU-93 thesaurus is much bigger and more structured than PACS or Astronomy Journal keyword list, so why isn't it used for article indexing? Let's find out!

8 Dark Energy, Exoplanets, & Higgs Boson IAU93: AIP PACS: org/pacs/pacs2010/individuals/pacs2010_reg ular_edition/reg90.htm#95 Astronomy Subject Keywords:

9 Context & History Current state of IAU-93 Thesaurus: Hasn't been updated since 1995 Missing terms important in modern astronomy No mechanism to keep thesaurus updated with new terms and relationships Current state of Astronomical Journal Keywords/PACS vocabulary: Updated biannually Astronomy terms added from literature Established mechanism to keep vocabulary

10 Context & History UAT prompted by the 'retirement' of PACS and desire to provide better tools for users Each publisher had started project to develop a PACS replacement vocabulary... but... decided to work together once they found out about each other's projects

11 UAT Introduction UAT vision/mission statement: an open, interoperable and community-supported thesaurus which unifies the existing divergent and isolated Astronomy & Astrophysics thesauri into a single high-quality, freely-available open thesaurus formalizing astronomical concepts and their interrelationships. ( 2012)

12 UAT Introduction UAT is different from prior vocabularies in terms of: Update process and frequency Management/Governance Level of community engagement Intended uses

13 Update Process Overview:

14 Update Process UAT's update process leverages expertise of astro. community in several ways: Suggest new terms, concepts from the current scientific literature/work Identify structural problems with the thesaurus and recommend solutions Review suggestions and recommendations and decide whether to implement or not

15 Update Process

16 Update Process Community involvement does not mean UAT is an 'Astronomy folksonomy'! Librarian(s) have key roles in UAT as: Gardeners Facilitators Liaison Officers User Advocates

17 Update Process Potential Benefits: Identification of new terms and issues Subject-matter expertise Intellectual rigor during review Virtuous cycle of community engagement Possible Risks: Volume overwhelms available resources Collective community yawn and disengagement

18 Management & Governance UAT management and governance structure comprises 2 groups: Stewardship group responsible for UAT's overall direction and sets long-term goals Operations and Outreach (O&O) group responsible for UAT's day-to-day operations and for implementing goals set by Stewardship group Librarian acts as liaison between groups

19 Standard Terminology

20 Standard Terminology

21 Standard Terminology

22 Standard Terminology

23 Standard Terminology

24 Standard Terminology Terrestrial Planets?

25 Standard Terminology Terrestrial Planets? Inner Planets

26 Increase Findability

27 Increase Findability

28 Increase Findability

29 Increase Findability

30 Initial Interest

31 Results from our Initial Surveys Categorize terms into three buckets: 1. Astronomical Objects such as Mars, black holes, neutron stars 2. Astronomical & Astrophysical Concepts such as the Big Bang, stellar evolution, mass transfer 3. Observational Methods & Instrumentation such as telescopes, CCD cameras, statistical analysis

32 Tools Process vs. Tools has been a major debate within UAT community Q: Do you focus first on process and then tools, or define tools and then process? Result: toolset is still in flux although some parts of toolset have been established (suggestions are welcome)

33 Tools Toolset: HIVE Google WordPress Groups Request Tracker Thesaurus Master Primary Purpose Main browser for UAT Platform for UAT website, blog & news Host discussion forums Manage user suggestions Manage UAT structure and generate files Public or Private? Public only Public only Public and Private Public and private Private only Open Source? Yes No No Preferred No hive.nescent.org: 9090/ConceptBr owser.html wordpress.com groups.google. com/forum/#! forum/uat-users N/A www. dataharmony. com/products/th esaurus_master. html URL

34 Tools Request Tracker

35 Questions? Contact Us: Justin Soles Katie Frey