The NSW Natural Resources Draft Thesaurus

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The NSW Natural Resources Draft Thesaurus

• Background and Presentation

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Existing classifications
NPWS
EPA
DLWC
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The vision - thematic view
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The vision - drilling down
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The vision - multiple listing
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What do we have now?

• A Controlled Vocabulary (ANZLIC Search Words)
• In use since 1995 (NRDD)
• Revised through ANZLIC Metadata Working Group

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Problems

• Limited number of terms (175)
• EXAMPLE
• Agriculture has only 3 sub-terms
• So most data sets get filed under AGRICULTURE
• For the 500 Core and Priority Data sets listed on
  the CANRI web site
• AGRICULTURE 67
• AGRICULTURE crops 3
• AGRICULTURE irrigation 24
• AGRICULTURE livestock 1

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Problems

• Presented only as a single Search Box function
• or a drop down list at best

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What do we need

• A tool to assist users to discover information
• Drill down through a logical sequence of terms,
  and
• provide other terms associated with the term
  chosen
• broader meaning
• narrower meaning
• same meaning

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What makes a thesaurus?

• Large number of terms
• EXAMPLE (from draft Thesaurus)
• AGRICULTURE has
• 7 narrower terms, which have
• 39 narrower terms, which have
• 29 narrower terms, which have
• 5 narrower terms.
• A total of 80 terms under AGRICULTURE

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What makes a thesaurus?

• Terms are related to each other in a formal
  structure.

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Thesaurus Structure

• At the top of the GEMET thesaurus structure are
  two ways to categorise the terms
• by Theme, or
• by Group

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Categorise by Theme

• each term has at least one theme
• allows alphabetic listing of all terms in a theme
• allows many themes per term
• is really a flat structure under the Theme terms

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Categorise by Group

• Each term has at least one Top Term
• Assign Top Terms to the group
• So carry whole limb i.e. the path of broader
  and narrower terms in the correct context

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Specification

• A comprehensive vocabulary of terms relating to
  natural resources
• A structured terms list
• A Group category

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GEMET

• Vocabulary - over 5300 terms
• Structured - structured to ISO standards
• Provides a Group structure
• In addition,
• developed over many years by European and US
  Environmental Agencies
• is freely available for modification
• being adopted widely

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ISO/DIS 19115

• ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata
• Distributed as Draft International Standard
• expected to be ratified in December 2002
• 1. Mandatory use of Topic Categories (19) for
  each record
• Chosen as providing high level geographic data
  thematic classification
• 2. Optional use of published thesaurus

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ISO/DIS 19115 Topic Category
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ANZLIC Metadata Guidelines

• ANZLIC profile
• distributed to initiate a consultation process
• 1. A sub set of ISO/DIS 19115
• 2. Mandatory use of Topic Categories
• 3. Recommends if ANZLIC was to continue with a
  set of keywords the list should be completely
  revised and use the Topic Category codes to group
  keywords

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Draft Thesaurus

• Reject GEMET Groups and Themes
• Replace Groups by mapping ISO TopicCategories to
  Top Terms

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Draft Thesaurus - MS Word
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Draft Thesaurus MS ACCESS
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Draft Thesaurus

• Presentation forms
• Web format

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Draft Thesaurus - At work

• Map of ANZLIC search words to TopicCategories

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Draft Thesaurus - At work
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Coffee Break