Terminology Cross-Domain Final Report

Archival Science, 2005

Comma, 2018

Records-in-Contexts (RiC) is a new standard for description which will reconcile and build on the four existing ICA description standards, developing a broader understanding of basic archival principles in which it remains grounded. Thus, for example, the Principle of Provenance can be interpreted in different ways, and does not always fully reflect the social and material complexity of records' origin. Similarly, application of the principle of Original Order may result in the presentation of an order as it existed at only one point only in time. RiC attempts to develop a more expansive understanding of provenance by recognizing that records and the people who create, manage, and use them do not exist in isolation but in complex layers of interrelated, interdependent contexts. Representing this complexity is both helped by, and is informed by, developments in information and communication technologies (including developments within the parallel recordkeeping and cultural heritage communities) which offer the opportunity for separating components, re-combining and interrelating them, opening domain borders and connecting data between disparate systems. Two aspects of RiC are in development: the Conceptual Model (RiC-CM) which provides a generalized view of archival description, through identification of records-related entities (People-/Record-/Businessrelated), their properties and the relations between them; and the Ontology (RiC-O). RiC-O, which is in an early stage of development, will enable a technical representation of RiC-compliant archival metadata. As a formal Web Ontology Language (OWL), and based on the four principles of usefulness, flexibility, functionality and extensibility, it will enable archival description to become fully visible within a linked open online world.

In ContemporarY Ontologies for Digital Archives (YODA) Workshop, July 15-19.2024. 14th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2024), 2024

Time and time again researchers are faced with the issue of choosing the most appropriate vocabulary for publishing archival data, particularly in the Semantic Web. Options range from most popular ones, such as schema.org, or more comprehensive ones such as CIDOC-CRM. There are pros and cons in each of them, but no guidelines on how to decide about it. This paper aims at providing some guidance based on an analysis of data at hand but also the requirements of data providers and users. For example, archives often refrain to add much interpretation by providing simple access to categorised documents with simple annotations such as person’s names or location names. Moreover, the archival data as well as its digitized versions may present subtleties, such as is the document original or has it been modified, simplified, copied or translated, which is often omitted. Therefore, depending on how much detailed information is actually accessible, but also what are the requirements of the data providers/users, the data can be ”placed” at different levels of content literacy/granularity and provenance. By having a clear understanding of the possibilities and limitations of each level, the choice of one or more vocabularies are down to the one(s) that should provide the necessary expressiveness. Naturally, choosing more than one vocabulary also requires some integration task.

Archival Science, 2005

This paper argues that an essential component of electronic recordkeeping needs to be an infrastructure to support the creation, preservation and accessibility over time of trustworthy, understandable metadata. This infrastructure can then also be used to provide specifications and an implementation environment for automated tools to assist archivists in the ongoing management of trustworthy records and metadata, and users in the identification, retrieval, and manipulation of those records and metadata. The paper discusses this need in the context of the development by the International research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES 2) Description Cross-Domain Group of a metadata schema registry. This registry is a prototype resource designed to assist archivists and records creators in multiple domains in developing and assessing their own and other communities' metadata infrastructures. The paper concludes by identifying two contested issues that are surfaced and how they are being confronted by this work: one of these is a definitional issue that relates to how to delineate the concept of archival description in the face of competing notions of ''metadata.'' The other is the extent to which both the life cycle and continuum worldviews and associated activities can or should be supported, reconciled or even rethought through the conceptual and analytical approach that is embedded in the metadata schema registry.

Archival Science, 2001

Journal of World-Historical Information, 2015

The Collaborative for Historical Information and Analysis (CHIA), a large-scale digital humanities project, aims to link world-historical data in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities; allow researchers to draw new connections and new conclusions from analyzing large-scale aggregated datasets; and provide for the long-term preservation of historical data. To accomplish these tasks, CHIA requires a coherent metadata framework to link data to their sources and each other (CHIA, NSF Grant Proposal). Work on geospatial gazetteers and temporal ontologies has already begun; however, in order to ensure the longevity of CHIA data, allow users to understand and access the data, and publish datasets for future use, defining a controlled vocabulary of topical metadata for CHIA’s data is vital. This research aims to define topical metadata practices for CHIA through the creation and definition of a controlled vocabulary that will add value to CHIA data and allow for future growth and change.

1993

This document describes the current status, as of March 30, 1993, of an initiative aimed at creating a consensus glossary of temporal database concepts and names. An earlier status document appeared in December 1992 and included terms proposed after an initial glossary appeared in SIGMOD Record. This document contains a set of new terms, proposed since December 1992, and the terms from the December 1992 document. To provide a context, the terms from the initial glossary are included in an appendix in dictionary format, and criteria for evaluation of glossary entries are also listed in the appendix. The document is intended to help future contributors of glossary entries. Proposed glossary entries should be sent to [email protected]. Other information related to the initiative may be found at cs.arizona.edu in the tsql directory, accessible via anonymous ftp. This paper was distributed to the TSQL e-mailing list in March 1993.

2013

Data curation projects frequently deal with data that were not created for the purposes of longterm preservation and re-use. How can curation of such legacy data be improved by supplying necessary metadata? In this report, we address this and other questions by creating robust metadata for twenty legacy research datasets. We report on the metrics of creating domainspecific metadata and propose a four-prong framework of metadata creation for legacy research data. Our findings indicate that there is a steep learning curve in encoding metadata using the FGDC content standard for digital geospatial metadata. Our project demonstrates that when data curators are handed research data "as is," they may be successful in incorporating such data into a data sharing environment. We found that data curators can be successful in creating descriptive metadata and enhancing discoverability via subject analysis. However, curators must be aware of the limitations in applying structural and administrative metadata for legacy data.

1997

The discipline of terminology has gained significantly in importance in the past decades. Yet there are still many problems that need to be solved. Examples of the role of terminology in the fields of documentation, information management, standardisation, translation and training are presented. The role, aims and objectives of the newly established European Association for Terminology (EAFT) are described.