New Ways of Mapping Knowledge Organization Systems: Using a Semi-Automatic Matching Procedure for Building up Vocabulary Crosswalks

摘要

Crosswalks between different vocabularies are an indispensable prerequisite for integrated, high-quality search scenarios in distributed data environments where more than one controlled vocabulary is in use. Offered through the web and linked with each other they act as a central link so that users can move back and forth between different online data sources. In the past, crosswalks between different thesauri have usually been developed manually. In the long run the intellectual updating of such crosswalks is expensive. An obvious solution would be to apply automatic matching procedures, such as the so-called ontology matching tools. On the basis of computer-generated correspondences between the Thesaurus for the Social Sciences (TSS) and the Thesaurus for Economics (STW), our contribution explores the trade-off between IT-assisted tools and procedures on the one hand and external quality evaluation by domain experts on the other hand. This paper presents techniques for semi-automatic development and maintenance of vocabulary crosswalks. The performance of multiple matching tools was first evaluated against a reference set of correct mappings, then the tools were used to generate new mappings. It was concluded that the ontology matching tools can be used effectively to speed up the work of domain experts. By optimizing the workflow, the method promises to facilitate sustained updating of high-quality vocabulary crosswalks.