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5856 results in Facet Publishing

Page 275 of 293

  • 12 - Building a thesaurus 3: vocabulary analysis

  • Vanda Broughton
  • Book:
    Essential Thesaurus Construction
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 107-116

  • Summary

    As we have seen in Chapter 7, a thesaurus consists of a systematic display and an alphabetical display, the two being interdependent. In the systematic display the relationships between terms are shown visually by the indentation of terms, so that subordinate and coordinate status are evident from the page layout. In the alphabetical display these relationships between terms are obscured, so must be identified by a system of crossreferences, that is the thesaural relations.

    It is easiest to establish the correct relationships by constructing the systematic display, so this is done as a first stage. It is then converted to an alphabetical format when the structure of the vocabulary has been determined.

    We shall do this for our model thesaurus by a method known as facet analysis. It should be emphasized that this is not the only method of constructing a thesaurus, but it is a well established and reliable method, underpinned by a rational, scientific theory.

    Facet analysis

    The idea of facet analysis was conceived by S. R. Ranganathan in the 1920s and 1930s, and was implemented in a library classification scheme, the Colon Classification. The established library classifications of the time tended to be lists of topics likely to occur as the subjects of books, arrived at on a pragmatic basis, and including large numbers of compound classes (such as ‘the pineapple canning industry in Hawaii’, or ‘science and religious belief in 17th century England’). The central notion of facet analysis is that vocabulary tools for subject fields can be better organized by identifying the individual constituent concepts of the subject (and combining them as and when needed), than by detailing all the possible combinations of concepts in a long list of pre-coordinated classes.

    The faceted type of vocabulary tool tends to be briefer, more logical, and more flexible than a pre-combined enumeration of compound subjects. It is also closer to the culture of post-coordinate indexing, with the use of relatively simple keywords or descriptors. Although Ranganathan’ methods were initially used to create a library classification for the physical arrangement of documents, the economical structure of the faceted classification makes it very easily turned into a thesaurus.

    Fundamental categories

    Facet analysis works by applying broad principles of division to the concepts in the subject field to achieve a separation of these into facets, or aspects, of the subject.

  • 3 - Portal architectures

  • from Section 1 - Core themes
  • Edited by Andrew Cox
  • Book:
    Portals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 24-37

  • Summary

    Introduction

    There has been considerable interest in appropriate architectures for building portals, and a number of solutions have been proposed. In this chapter I do not analyse the architectures in detail, but look briefly at what a portal is and what this means for the architectures and then look at what is needed in an architecture for building portals, using examples from some of the most important architectural models.

    What is a portal?

    There is no common agreement as to what a portal is. Many point out that the word means doorway (often taken to be a grand doorway such as that found at the main (west) door of a cathedral), with the implication that a portal is simply a way of accessing a number of services, but as Strauss has stated, ‘a home page doth not a portal make’. By which he means that it is not enough simply to bring a number of different channels or information sources together on a web page; there is a need to provide some degree of integration and customization. He goes on to describe a portal as a ‘Customized Personalized Adaptive Desktop’ and it is worth exploring what he means by each of these terms before looking at some of the implications for how one might build a portal, and equally how one can set about shifting the entire organization from where it is now to having a portal.

  • • Customized – The portal adapts to the user, and the more it knows about the user the better it should be able to adapt to their needs, whether the user is a member of teaching staff, administrative staff, a researcher, a student or a prospective student (or someone who occupies several of those roles – for instance a postgraduate student who also teaches). It should also be able to adapt to the type of hardware that the user is currently using (PC on a LAN, PC on a dial-up line, personal digital assistant (PDA) or smart phone). This should be done as the user logs into the portal.

  • • Personalized – Allows the user to change the portal's interface and behaviour to meet the user's needs and preferences. This would include the appearance (colours, fonts, size), channels subscribed to and their location on screen.

  • Section 2 - The library and the portal

  • Edited by Andrew Cox
  • Book:
    Portals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 77-80

  • Summary

    The activities of information professionals that are related to portals are:

  • • Guiding users to find the best portal to meet their information need, and also using subject portals in information inquiry work themselves.

  • • Organizing information sources for information service users, through web directory websites – in effect portals – encompassing both free internet services and library subscriptions to web resources.

  • • Contributing content to organizational portals, e.g. news streams, and input to the design of the portal from the information perspective (e.g. designing taxonomies).

  • • Involvement in building major public portals on the open web.

    • The chapters in this section explore aspects of these themes. Winship looks outwards from the organization at web portals, web subject portals and search engines exploring trends in the aggregation of functions and tools, partly as a guide to help information professionals in their information inquiry work, also with a view to informing organizations about what functions they will find it useful to develop in their own portals. This reflects the sense that organizations are constantly learning from – or, more frankly, being pushed along by – the great sandbox that is the web. MacColl's chapter beautifully captures the evolution of one library's response to the need to organize the expanding universe of web-based information sources for its users. In itself this experience tells us much about the evolution of the portal concept in general. Davies's chapter explores the development of specialist library portal software.

    It may be useful in the context of the volume as a whole to reflect further on the character of library portals as a concept. As ever with the word portal there is a certain haziness in the library portal idea. The core function of the commercial products sometimes referred to as library portals comprises tools to cross-search multiple databases from one search string, generally using Z39.50 as a search protocol (Library of Congress, 2005).

Essential Thesaurus Construction
  • Vanda Broughton
  • Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006
  • Many information professionals working in small units today fail to find the published tools for subject-based organization that are appropriate to their local needs, whether they are archivists, special librarians, information officers, or knowledge or content managers. Large established standards for document description and organization are too unwieldy, unnecessarily detailed, or too expensive to install and maintain. In other cases the available systems are insufficient for a specialist environment, or don't bring things together in a helpful way. A purpose built, in-house system would seem to be the answer, but too often the skills necessary to create one are lacking. This practical text examines the criteria relevant to the selection of a subject-management system, describes the characteristics of some common types of subject tool, and takes the novice step by step through the process of creating a system for a specialist environment. The methodology employed is a standard technique for the building of a thesaurus that incidentally creates a compatible classification or taxonomy, both of which may be used in a variety of ways for document or information management. Key areas covered are: What is a thesaurus? Tools for subject access and retrieval; what a thesaurus is used for? Why use a thesaurus? Examples of thesauri; the structure of a thesaurus; thesaural relationships; practical thesaurus construction; the vocabulary of the thesaurus; building the systematic structure; conversion to alphabetic format; forms of entry in the thesaurus; maintaining the thesaurus; thesaurus software; and; the wider environment. Essential for the practising information professional, this guide is also valuable for students of library and information science.

  • 18 - Building a thesaurus 8: creating the thesaurus records

  • Vanda Broughton
  • Book:
    Essential Thesaurus Construction
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 186-196

  • Summary

    The preparatory work on the vocabulary has now been completed, and all that remains is to create the individual entries that will form the alphabetical display.

    Management of the thesaurus data

    At this stage you will need to think about how the thesaurus data will be permanently held and maintained. You will need to create a ‘record’ for each entry term in the vocabulary, which will consist of:

  • • the entry term itself

  • • any notational code or control number

  • • scope notes

  • • the separate thesaural relationships, i.e.

  • — references to or from preferred and non-preferred terms

  • — broader terms

  • — narrower terms

  • — related terms.

    • For the purpose of maintaining the thesaurus over time, you may also want to add information about when terms were added or deleted, changes in terms, as well as information about who did what and why. If you also hope to revise or update the systematic structure, you may have to add some information about the level of indentation and other display features. Various means of holding the data will make these tasks easier.

    In bringing the vocabulary to its present state I have maintained it as a series of Word files. This method allows easy editing in respect of the insertion, rearrangement and modification of terms in the systematic display, where the context is apparent, but is probably less than ideal for the thesaurus format where the thesaural relationships are the central feature. It's very difficult to sort the records alphabetically to achieve the A–Z format, and you will have to insert each record into the sequence as you go along, which requires a lot of scrolling up and down. Nevertheless, there is no reason why a small vocabulary cannot be maintained as a text file if your resources are limited.

    For most situations some sort of database will offer the best solution. There is a more detailed discussion of specialist thesaurus software in Chapter 19, but any general database application could be used. A spreadsheet can also perform quite well for a modest thesaurus, since the relationships between ‘fields’ in the vocabulary are usually very straightforward.

  • 5 - User needs analysis and evaluation of portals

  • from Section 1 - Core themes
  • Edited by Andrew Cox
  • Book:
    Portals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 52-62

  • Summary

    Introduction

    As specified in the ISO 13407 standard (ISO, 1999), user-centred design begins with a thorough understanding of the needs and requirements of the users. User needs analysis (or knowledge elicitation) and evaluation methods in human–computer interaction (HCI) are a critical function to the success of requirements and design gathering (Maiden, Mistry and Sutcliffe, 1995), usability testing and user evaluation stages of software development (Zaphiris and Kurniawan, 2001).

    Examples of knowledge elicitation methods often start with initial questionnaire for feedback, requirements task walkthroughs, interviews techniques and focus group sessions (discussed in further detail in a subsequent section). It can rapidly scale upwards to more complex psychometric, design and evaluation processes: prototype construction of various fidelity levels, direct and indirect observation practices for monitoring user actions, response time comparisons, and various methods for eliciting mental categorization models, e.g. for distinguishing patterns of use between experts and non experts.

    The measure of a good experience can vary from person to person; however the appropriate understanding of a usable design comes from gaining the knowledge that it is functional, efficient and desirable to its intended audience (Kuniavksy, 2003). John and Marks (1997) identify three key factors to assess the usability of an interface:

    Usability is measured by the extent to which the intended goals of use of the overall system are achieved (effectiveness); the resources that have to be expended to achieve the intended goals (efficiency); and the extent to which the user finds the overall system acceptable (satisfaction).

    The usability of a system is also related to issues surrounding its accessibility. There is a broad range of users to whom web-based services are directed, and the services provided ought to be accessible to them (e.g. the visually, hearing, physically or cognitively impaired or even people with different experience of and attitudes towards technology).

    The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) began to come into effect in the UK in December 1996 and brought in measures to prevent discrimination against people on the basis of disability. Part III of the Act, in force since October 2004, aims to ensure that disabled people have equal access to products and services.

  • Section 3 - The portal in the corporate sector

  • Edited by Andrew Cox
  • Book:
    Portals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 123-124

  • Summary

    Much new thinking about portals comes from the corporate sector, e.g. from commentators like Firestone. The most impressive and advanced applications team multinational corporations with market leaders in the technology. Public sector organizations can only dream of having the budget and command-line leadership style to exploit the latest technology in the same way.

    However, what is really happening in the corporate sector is often difficult to gauge. We are likely to take the trade literature and sales brochures with a very large pinch of salt. They often do not really seem to come down to specifics (presumably it is that as much as the code one pays for). However, the two chapters in this section go some way to explore the truth behind the flood of white papers. Sugianto and Tojib review much of the existing case-study literature, in itself a useful exercise – but they are realistic about the potential benefits and drawbacks. White's authoritative chapter dissolves much of the hype with a refreshing dose of good sense. Both frame evaluation as a key issue.

  • 20 - Conclusion

  • Vanda Broughton
  • Book:
    Essential Thesaurus Construction
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 206-207

  • Summary

    We have now covered all the stages in the construction of the thesaurus using facet analysis as the starting point. It should be emphasized that, like any activity involving language, thesaurus construction is not an exact science.

    Both the guidelines offered in the standards (which are largely concerned with the form of entry) and the methodology of facet analysis require the thesaurus compiler to exercise personal judgement in the selection and analysis of terms. Often the decisions to be made are not at all easy, because the subtlety and complexity of language does not always permit precise boundaries to be drawn. Don't let this deter you from attempting to construct a thesaurus. The application of method and logic will provide you with a good and efficient tool, even where decisions are necessarily subjective, and a little more experience of working with vocabularies will improve your confidence.

    During the time that I was writing this book, the new British standard Structured Vocabularies for Information Retrieval (BS 8723) was in preparation, and the first two parts, Definitions, Symbols and Abbreviations, and the part relating to thesauri, were published shortly before Essential Thesaurus Construction went to press. In the USA, there is also a working party looking at the ANSI/NISO standard and considering many of the same aspects of the modern thesaurus not addressed by the current guidelines.

    A workshop held at the end of 1999 set some criteria for the working party. The recommendations of the workshop1 included the following:

  • • A new standard for ‘thesauri’ is needed, and it should be a single standard.

  • • However, it should not be a standard for ‘electronic’ thesauri. Essentially

  • all thesauri are digital today, so ‘electronic’ is superfluous.

  • • Furthermore, the standard should provide for a broader group of controlled

  • vocabularies than those that fit the standard definition of ‘thesaurus’. This

  • includes, for example, ontologies, classifications, taxonomies, and subject

  • headings, in addition to standard thesauri.

  • • The primary concern is with shareability (inter-operability), rather

  • than with construction or display. Therefore this new standard probably

  • will not supersede Z39.19, but supplement it.

  • • The standard should focus on concepts, terms and relationships.

  • The new British standard also addresses these issues, and is notable in that

  • it replaces what was originally a standard for the construction of thesauri

  • with one dealing with different forms of retrieval tools.

  • 11 - Building a thesaurus 2: term extraction from document titles

  • Vanda Broughton
  • Book:
    Essential Thesaurus Construction
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 99-106

  • Summary

    Following the systematic searches on catalogues and databases, we now have about 150 titles which will form the basis of the working vocabulary. Because these were selected carefully to avoid duplication of terms where possible, this should provide us with about 400–500 terms. This is really as big a vocabulary as one can comfortably manage in the initial stages, and there are quite enough terms to establish a sound and reliable structure for the thesaurus. There will probably be gaps in the terminology, but it is more efficient to fill these in at a later stage if necessary. In the majority of cases, far fewer terms than this can provide a reasonable structure for the thesaurus, so if you are dealing with a small, specialist vocabulary you can manage with around 100 terms as a starting point.

    The titles must now be analysed to identify relevant terms. I find it easiest to do this in a rather rough and ready way, using a list of the titles, and cutting and pasting the relevant terms into another document. Some level of vocabulary control can be imposed as you go along and, at the end, the extracted terms are easily sorted using the A–Z sort facility of a word processing package.

    Identification of significant terms

    Let's start by picking out the key concepts in each title. We will look at some examples of titles from our list, starting with a very straightforward one:

    Cat overpopulation in the United States

    Here there are three important terms:

    cat – overpopulation – United States

    A similar straightforward example is:

    Preference of domestic rabbits for grass or coarse mix

    feeds

    Domestic rabbits – grass – coarse mix feeds

    You will notice that I did not select ‘preference’ as a term to be used. Vague or general terms of this kind are not generally used in indexing, and the purpose of the exercise is to identify significant terms. If you find it hard to decide on what is significant or not, you may think about the kinds of terms that an end-user is likely to search for. A useful tip is to look for nouns or noun phrases first, and then for any significant verbs. You will remember from the previous chapter that most thesaurus terms fall into these two categories.

  • 15 - Building a thesaurus 5: imposing hierarchy

  • Vanda Broughton
  • Book:
    Essential Thesaurus Construction
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 143-151

  • Summary

    An obvious way in which the structure of arrays can be improved is by displaying any hierarchical relationships between concepts. We have already looked at the nature of the broader/narrower term relationship in some detail in Chapter 13, together with a large number of examples of different kinds of relationship. Consideration of the hierarchy in this chapter is mainly of the particular needs of the animals facet, so, although some general principles are discussed, this is mainly a demonstration of putting the theory into practice in a specific situation.

    Hierarchical structure

    Compared with an enumerative, pre-coordinated system, a faceted structure is usually a rather flat structure, with limited levels of hierarchy. This is because it doesn't contain many complicated compounds. Nevertheless some degree of hierarchy will exist and should be represented in the systematic structure. Concepts that exist in a superordinate/subordinate or broader/narrower term relationship need to be brought together in the linear order so that these relationships can be properly displayed.

    The recognition of these broader/narrower term relationships seems to be intuitive, and even novice thesaurus compilers experience little difficulty with this part of the process. This is particularly so when the terminology can be easily understood by a lay person, although in the case of a technical subject, some help may be required from a dictionary or encyclopaedia. Our animal terms are relatively straightforward to interpret, to some extent because of the decision to use vernacular names. Despite that, there are a few challenging terms (because no vernacular equivalents exist) and I needed the aid of a dictionary to discover that ‘ratites’ is the containing class for emus, ostriches and rheas.

    Representation of hierarchy

    We normally represent hierarchy in the systematic display by indenting a subordinate concept to its containing class, as follows:

    Primates

    Gorillas

    Western lowland gorillas

    This visual representation of subordinate classes will enable us to identify the broader and narrower terms very easily when we come to convert the taxonomic structure to thesaurus format. Because all the terms in a facet are of the same general kind (i.e. all entities, or processes, or products) there will not usually be any problem in establishing whether the relationships are genuine hierarchical relationships, of a thing/kind or whole/part nature, since they cannot really be otherwise. In the hierarchy

    Primates

    Monkeys

    Capuchin monkeys

    Tufted capuchin monkeys

  • 9 - Vocabulary control 1: selection of terms

  • Vanda Broughton
  • Book:
    Essential Thesaurus Construction
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 70-80

  • Summary

    In the preliminary stages in the construction of the thesaurus you have begun to assemble your vocabulary and you will have a number of terms. If you have followed the methods of vocabulary collection described, these have come from a number of different sources, and the style and form of the terms may vary quite a lot. The vocabulary is only at the first stage of being properly managed, and you should start to work towards a fuller level of standardization.

    Creating a list of standard terms (that is, a vocabulary) for indexing requires the compiler to do several things:

  • • reduce the number of terms overall, by abandoning natural language in favour of a limited set of terms

  • • when terms are similar in meaning, decide on which of them should be used

  • • when terms have different spellings, decide on which should be used

  • • decide on the exact form of the entry term, for example whether it should be plural or singular, and how punctuation should be employed

  • • decide about the handling of compound terms, for example when and how words should be combined to make multi-word terms and phrases, and word order.

    • This process is even more important when any degree of automation is involved, since the search software will demand (nearly) exact matching between indexing and search terms if retrieval is to occur at all. Although the development of fuzzy searching systems allows some variation in terms (such as a mistyped letter), the form of terms still needs to be very close to the original to get a result.

    All of the above actions together constitute what is known as vocabulary control. You will see that there are two main aspects of this process:

  • • the selection of terms

  • • deciding on the exact form of terms.

    • The selection of terms

    Synonym control: preferred and non-preferred terms

    Synonymy, that is the occurrence of a number of different words for the same idea, creates considerable problems for the online searcher. In a system such as a classification scheme, where notational codes are used to represent concepts, the existence of different names for the same idea doesn’ present a problem, since the notation equates to as many words as necessary and acts as a kind of shorthand for the concept.

  • 11 - Enterprise information portals

  • from Section 3 - The portal in the corporate sector
  • Edited by Andrew Cox
  • Book:
    Portals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 138-146

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This chapter describes the functionality and use of enterprise information portals (EIPs). These are applications which integrate structured and unstructured information onto a desktop that can be customized by each user. The concept of EIPs dates back to the late 1990s, but there are now virtually no stand-alone EIP server applications because the EIP vendors that survived the dot.com crash have now been acquired. Although in theory the concept of an enterprise portal providing integrated access to a range of disparate applications is one of considerable utility, in reality EIPs have failed to deliver the anticipated benefits. Nevertheless, individual features of EIPs do have value, but these are now being delivered through broader-based enterprise platforms. There is some encouraging development in portal standards through JSR 168 and WSRP (see below).

    Integrating structured and unstructured information

    Until the mid-1980s investments in computer power were justified on the basis of providing better access to large structured databases of information. The metric for intellectual property of a company was the size of the computer room sitting behind glass screens in an air-conditioned paradise. Then came the PC! Only people older than about 40 can remember offices where desks were full of paper but there was hardly a computer in sight. Access to corporate computing power was over dumb terminals used by people who did little else all day except enter and retrieve data.

    Over the last two decades the volume and scale of unstructured data has increased enormously as everyone becomes their own typist, and the default method of communication seems to have become e-mail. As a result, the general rule of thumb is that 85% of the information in an organization is now unstructured text, e-mail and external business information. Gaining access to this information is a considerable challenge, but an even greater one is the need to gain simultaneous access to both unstructured and structured information through a single user interface and with a standard set of tools.

  • 4 - What a thesaurus is used for

  • Vanda Broughton
  • Book:
    Essential Thesaurus Construction
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 26-37

  • Summary

    The last chapter showed us that the thesaurus is very much a multipurpose vocabulary tool. As a consequence it has a number of potential applications, some of which have arisen only recently, within the context of electronic information management. In this chapter we will look at the ways in which the thesaurus can be used, primarily by the information professional for indexing and the organization of information, but also by the end-user to support retrieval through searching and browsing.

    The thesaurus as an indexing tool

    As it was first developed, the thesaurus was an indexing tool for large technical document collections; that is to say it was used as a source of descriptors or indexing terms for attaching to the database or catalogue records for those documents. These assigned index terms would then form the ‘text’ which was searched in subject searches. Used in this way, the thesaurus almost presupposes the machine management of document collections.

    Thesaurus terms for subject headings

    In fact the thesaurus can be used equally well in a print-based environment if the terms are combined to create alphabetical subject headings. A thesaurus used in this way will require clear instructions for the combination of terms, particularly for the order in which terms should be combined, if consistency is to be maintained. A good example of this sort of application of a thesaurus is in the paper version of Library and Information Science Abstracts(LISA)where ‘every abstract in LISA is indexed with a general term taken from the LISA Thesaurus,to which qualifying terms are added to increase the specificity of the string’.1 In other words, the thesaurus terms are combined to create subject headings for the printed list, as in this example, taken from the November/December 2005 edition of LISA :

    Classification: 13158–13162

    Companies – Business information – Information work: 13604

    Documents – Searching: 13293

    Mapping – Cocitation – Visualization – Citation analysis: 12824

    Search engines – Online information retrieval: 13277

  • 7 - The format of a thesaurus

  • Vanda Broughton
  • Book:
    Essential Thesaurus Construction
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 49-57

  • Summary

    As we have already seen in the introduction and in the examples, a thesaurus can take a number of forms, from a simple keyword list to a fully integrated systematic and alphabetic display with all the detailed relationships between terms carefully worked out. Although the simple keyword list may still be sufficient for a very small document collection, in the majority of cases the needs of users are better served by having a properly constructed system, based on logical principles, since this is in the long run easier to update and maintain, and is more compatible with the machine management of the thesaurus.

    In this chapter we shall consider the various parts of the thesaurus as it is laid out on the page or screen. You should remember that although there are various national and international standards for thesaurus construction, these differ in some respects, and in practice, individual thesauri may use a local style different from any format proposed in the standards.

    Most modern thesauri consist of two elements: a systematic structure where the relationships between terms can be seen in a visual display; and the alphabetical display, where the terms are listed in A–Z order, each with cross-references to other terms related in some way.

    The systematic display

    The systematic display is sometimes not given prominence in the published tool, and in older thesauri it may provide no more than a summarization of the topics covered. Nevertheless, it can play a vital part in designing the thesaurus and establishing relationships. A browsing tool of this sort can also be of great use to the indexer (and also to the end-users, although they are less likely to be aware of it) in providing a map of the subject. The capacity to scan the broad subject structure, to see which subjects are represented, and to select appropriate descriptors, can often be more easily achieved in a systematic display than in the distributed vocabulary of the A–Z list.

    For example, in the section for dentistry in a hypothetical medical thesaurus, part of the systematic display might look like this:

    The systematic display brings together a number of terms which are widely scattered in the A–Z format (teeth, dental techniques, crown, extraction, etc.), and also gives a sense of the number and range of terms in the vocabulary which are available for indexing in this particular subject area.

  • Section 1 - Core themes

  • Edited by Andrew Cox
  • Book:
    Portals
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    30 June 2006, pp 1-2

  • Summary

    The first section of this volume addresses two fundamental clusters of questions about portals. First, what is a portal? What distinguishes one from any other service? What functions, features or affordances can or should we expect to find in a portal? What types of portal is it useful to identify? A second set of questions revolve more around how a portal is designed, especially how to incorporate users in the design process – and how to manage the portal on an ongoing basis. These will be questions that all the chapters of the volume address, but in this section authors tackle them at a more general level.

    My own chapter encourages the reader to re-examine their own experience of different services that call themselves, or are called by others, portals, and to ask: what is the common ground? What common themes emerge? The discussion suggests that it may be possible only to identify themes – not a hard and fast definition – but this helps us understand the emergent character of the concept and to identify the existence of less recognized counter-trends. The chapter also begins to ask what forces operate to control the development of the portal as a project; what organizational influences are likely to govern the shape of its evolution? Andrew Madden's chapter reflects further on the evolution of the web portal concept, in the context of internet searching behaviour.

    Franklin and Hepworth, Probets, Qutaishat and Walton address the first cluster of questions. Franklin reviews underlying technologies, again trying to explore the need organizations have for a portal and what is achievable. The examples are from the university sector, but the principles are probably generic. There is recognition again that the portal is an evolving concept. The stress on middleware and on access management is notable. Simplifying sign-on is a key objective (as Schelleman demonstrates in Chapter 14) and it is the bedrock on which things like personalization will be achieved. Hepworth et al. concentrate precisely on personalization, drawing on a very wide range of models to consider what could be useful to users, what is realistic. Looking at most existing portals what has actually been done in the way of personalization is quite limited, so this chapter is inevitably relatively conceptual. Yet there seems little doubt that personalization/customization/ adaptivity will be a continuing major theme in portal development.

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