Development and application of a framework for maintenance of medical terminological systems.

Little attention has previously been paid to the use of controlled vocabularies and subject keywords for indexing archival finding aids in the UK. Qualitative and quantitative responses to a questionnaire of UK repositories concerning the use of subject keywords and controlled vocabularies are presented. Clear patterns of thesaurus usage emerge from responses, and diverse opinions are put forward. Issues raised include retrieval by free text versus controlled vocabulary, strengths and weaknesses of different thesauri, lack of suitable thesauri, use of multiple thesauri, retrospective conversion, consistency of indexing across repositories and consistency of indexing across networks. Possible ways forward for the subject indexing of finding aids are identified.

Use of Controlled Vocabulary and Thesauri in UK Online Finding Aids

Quelles relations entretiennent les thesaurus documentaires et l’informatique documentaire ? Cette question est abordee par Sylvie Dalbin, sous l’angle technique des fonctionnalites et des usages, dans une autre contribution a ce numero. Dans le present article, elle se place dans une perspective historique pour etudier un demi-siecle de relations marquees par l’apparition des serveurs de banques de donnees professionnelles, par les evolutions induites dans les centres documentaires, dans les entreprises et dans les organisations, puis par l’apparition et le developpement du Web.

Thésaurus et informatique documentaires : Partenaires de toujours ?

Kwaliteitsevaluaties zijn vaak gebaseerd op kwaliteitsindicatoren, uitkomstmaten die een goede indicatie geven van de kwaliteit van de geleverde zorg, bijvoorbeeld sterftecijfers. De prestaties van een zorginstelling kunnen echter beinvloed zijn door specifieke kenmerken van de opgenomen patienten, zoals diagnose, leeftijd en geslacht. Om de prestaties van verschillende zorginstellingen vergelijkbaar te maken, wordt vaak een prognostisch model gebruikt om de ruwe uitkomstmaten te corrigeren voor de onderliggende verschillen. Maar als die correcties onbetrouwbaar zijn, worden de resultaten van de kwaliteitsmeting dat ook. Is de kwaliteit van de data die gebruikt worden om correcties aan te brengen gebrekkig, dan heeft kwaliteitsevaluatie ook weinig zin. Ferishta Raiez gaat dieper in op deze onderwerpen. Zij richtte zich op het gebruik van terminologiesystemen voor consistente dataverzameling en op het gebruik van prognostische modellen voor case-mixcorrectie ten behoeve van kwaliteitsevaluaties op de intensive care.

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Terminological systems and prognostic models as instruments for quality assessment in intensive care

This paper is an expression about historical background, current trends and applications of taxonomies. It is based on the published literature discussing various aspects of taxonomies. The survey is based on free text search for the terms: Taxonomy, Knowledge organisation, Knowledge organisation systems, and Knowledge organisation tools in various online databases (Emerald, Taylor & Francis, Wilson web, Science Direct, Wiley online), and Google. Besides online databases some articles were identified from conventional journals and books. A number of periodicals across disciplines cover the subject. After analysis the relevant articles coinciding with the scope of the paper are presented under three categories: need, description, and benefits. The review reveals that the use of taxonomies is being highly advocated by the scholars for the efficient knowledge organization and retrieval of information in the digital environment due to the expeditious and compounded growth of information on the web and the failure of search engines to retrieve the relevant information. The ability of the taxonomies to retrieve the digital information with high precision and recall is unanimously accepted and established beyond doubt. It is also revealed that taxonomies are being implemented in various organizations/web portals across the globe.

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Taxonomies in knowledge organisation — Need, description and benefits

SUMMARY This article defines basic concepts relevant to controlled vocabularies and outlines criteria for evaluating vocabulary management software. A comparison of four representative vocabulary management products is provided in an accompanying appendix.

Melissa A. Riesland

Papers

Tools of the Trade: Vocabulary Management Software