Thesaurus Development

Literature Review (see Annotated Bibliography)

The construction project included an extensive literature review of works on thesaurus construction and indexing languages; faceted classification and classification theory; classification and the internet; and finally, an examination of indexing languages.

Procedures and Problems (see Procedures)

Upon completion of the literature review, a thorough examination of IIS literature was undertaken. From the IIS literature, we extracted many concepts, which we checked against existing thesauri and in some cases developed into terms. The terms relationships were then analyzed and formal connections were established.

Evaluation (see Evaluation)

Upon completion of the thesaurus, we were ready to start testing. We recruited a pool of testers to index a selection of IIS abstracts using the ERIC and IIS thesauri. Once the test results were complied, we made the first (of potentially many) revision to the thesaurus. The construction of a thesaurus is not a finite project; alterations continue to evolve the content throughout the life of the thesaurus.