Australian Government Subjects
TAGS – Thesaurus of Australian Government Subjects
This Thesaurus was developed as a result of a Project known as the Australian Whole of
Government High Level Subject Thesaurus Project, sponsored by the National Office for the
Information Economy (NOIE).
The purpose of the Project was to develop a high level thesaurus of subject terms for use by
Government agencies, which all agencies may use in the AGLS Subject element to describe their resources. AGLS Metadata facilitates discovery and use of an agency's resources online.
Subject metadata chosen from a controlled vocabulary such as this Thesaurus increases the ease and precision with which information is located.
TAGS - Thesaurus of Australian Government Subjects was compiled …show more content…
between August and December, 2001.
The thesaurus was intended to:
Cover, at a high level, subject concepts representing the scope of Commonwealth government activities
Provide a potential source of terminology for portal browse lists, and
Provide a subject vocabulary which is broader than the detailed vocabularies already adopted by some agencies, but which is able to function as an introduction to those detailed vocabularies, or to serve as a controlled vocabulary for those agencies without a specialized one.
The thesaurus conforms with ANSI/NISO Z39.19, Guidelines for the construction, format and management of monolingual thesauri - the standard for structure and organization of information retrieval thesauri.
Compiling the TAGS Thesaurus
TAGS presents the business of government from a subject or topic perspective, and is independent of the structure of government. The Thesaurus represents concepts in a neutral way, and covers all general areas of interest to government.
Following an initial review of candidate thesauri, the Canadian Whole of Government Subject
Thesaurus1 was chosen as the base list for the draft Australian Thesaurus. No single Australian subject thesaurus covered the range of relevant subject matter at an appropriate high level. The
Canadian Thesaurus was found to cover a wide range of topics relevant to Australian
Commonwealth government interests, hierarchical and reference relationships were already established in accordance with ANSI/NISO Z39.19 (a requirement of the Project), and it featured a useful classification of terms into broad subject categories independent of the hierarchical arrangement.
The Project commenced with discussions between the consultant and representatives of …show more content…
the
National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), National Archives of Australia (NAA),
National Library of Australia (NLA), Dept of Finance and Administration (DOFA), Centrelink and portal lead agencies. A Workshop with representatives of key stakeholders canvassed the aims, operational requirements and desired outcomes. More extensive and detailed discussions took place with members of a reference group representing NOIE, DOFA, Centrelink and some subject portals. This group enthusiastically reviewed successive drafts, providing valuable contributions and comments to help achieve this version. Representatives of the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) reviewed the final draft and this version reflects their suggestions for terms relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The base list of terms from Canada was amended to reflect Australian needs and terminology.
Terms of purely Canadian relevance were deleted, and Canadian terminology and spelling was replaced with Australian versions. Additional terms were selected to augment the subject coverage for Australian use. Sources used in the selection of new terms included:
• Australian subject thesauri
• Commonwealth agency subject lists
• Portal browse lists, and
• Agency subject metadata
The APAIS Thesaurus, the Centrelink Thesaurus (originally based on APAIS), and the fed.gov browse lists were particularly valuable sources.
The terms included in TAGS are those currently used by Commonwealth agencies. Editorial judgment was applied in selection of terms and in establishing a ‘neutral’ hierarchy. Agencies do not necessarily use the same term for a subject, and sometimes a term has different connotations in different agencies. Similarly, Australian subject thesauri are not consistent in their use of terms, since thesauri are compiled over time, for different purposes, and reflect the view and subject focus of the sponsoring agency.
Examples of various ways of expressing the concept ‘Occupational health and safety’:
APAIS Thesaurus: }
Family Thesaurus: } Occupational health; Safety (two terms)
Australian Transport Index Thesaurus: }
Centrelink Thesaurus: Occupational health and safety
Health Thesaurus: OH&S (with a reference from Occupational health and safety)
Australian Occupational Health and Does not actually use the term ‘Occupational Safety Thesaurus health and safety’ because the entire Thesaurusconcerns this topic.
It does use the phrase in nonpreferredterms, e.g., ‘Occupational health and safetycommittees USE Health and safety committees’.
A balance between the need for the Thesaurus to be ‘high level’ whilst at the same time being
‘detailed enough to be useful’ for metadata authors and searchers was also sought.
Not all topics are covered to the same level of detail in TAGS, and subject matter unrelated to the business of government is excluded. The most detailed coverage is given to topics where no appropriate subject thesaurus already exists. In some cases detail is included selectively, for example the terms ‘Wool’ and Cotton’ are included but ‘Mohair’ is not. The hierarchical structure allows additional terms to be included later if necessary.
For subject areas where agencies already use an established subject thesaurus, such as health and agriculture, the TAGS terminology has been deliberately kept at a very high level. In
these cases it is recommended that TAGS be used in conjunction with the specialist thesaurus: TAGS is used to provide the general term(s), supplemented by specific terms from the specialist thesaurus. The Thesaurus has been kept to a manageable size, in order to encourage its adoption and use, and for ease of review and maintenance. It contains a total of 3216 terms, comprising 1430 Preferred terms and 1786 Non-preferred terms (entry terms or reference points). The structure is hierarchical, using a "tree" structure that starts with broad concepts
(top terms) which are then broken down into narrower concepts. The structure is fairly flat, with 571 top terms, and a maximum of 3-4 steps in each hierarchy.
A particular requirement of the Project was to map (cross-reference) from APAIS and AGIFT terms to TAGS terms whenever appropriate and possible. Because the APAIS Thesaurus is a subject thesaurus with a similar structure to the Canadian Thesaurus, and the Canadian
Thesaurus includes many terms (or synonyms) which are also in APAIS, the APAIS mapping was quite straightforward. APAIS terms which fall outside the scope of TAGS are not included.
Where there is a clear correspondence between AGIFT and TAGS the terms have been mapped.
Using the Thesaurus
Terminology
TAGS consists of Preferred terms and Non-preferred terms. Relationships between terms are expressed with standard notation
Subject thesaurus terms are used to describe the subject matter of resources – they describe what resources are about. This thesaurus is designed for post-coordinate retrieval – that is, each term represents a single concept, and as many terms as necessary may be used to describe a resource. This provides for flexibility and precision during resource discovery, because the searcher is able to combine terms to satisfy the particular enquiry. In indexing and retrieval, composite concepts may require the use of two or more keywords. For example, a resource dealing with ‘computer network security’ would have the TAGS terms ‘Computer networks’ and ‘Security measures’ assigned as Subject metadata.
This Thesaurus was developed as a result of a Project known as the Australian Whole of
Government High Level Subject Thesaurus Project, sponsored by the National Office for the
Information Economy (NOIE).
The purpose of the Project was to develop a high level thesaurus of subject terms for use by
Government agencies, which all agencies may use in the AGLS Subject element to describe their resources. AGLS Metadata facilitates discovery and use of an agency's resources online.
Subject metadata chosen from a controlled vocabulary such as this Thesaurus increases the ease and precision with which information is located.
TAGS - Thesaurus of Australian Government Subjects was compiled …show more content…
between August and December, 2001.
The thesaurus was intended to:
Cover, at a high level, subject concepts representing the scope of Commonwealth government activities
Provide a potential source of terminology for portal browse lists, and
Provide a subject vocabulary which is broader than the detailed vocabularies already adopted by some agencies, but which is able to function as an introduction to those detailed vocabularies, or to serve as a controlled vocabulary for those agencies without a specialized one.
The thesaurus conforms with ANSI/NISO Z39.19, Guidelines for the construction, format and management of monolingual thesauri - the standard for structure and organization of information retrieval thesauri.
Compiling the TAGS Thesaurus
TAGS presents the business of government from a subject or topic perspective, and is independent of the structure of government. The Thesaurus represents concepts in a neutral way, and covers all general areas of interest to government.
Following an initial review of candidate thesauri, the Canadian Whole of Government Subject
Thesaurus1 was chosen as the base list for the draft Australian Thesaurus. No single Australian subject thesaurus covered the range of relevant subject matter at an appropriate high level. The
Canadian Thesaurus was found to cover a wide range of topics relevant to Australian
Commonwealth government interests, hierarchical and reference relationships were already established in accordance with ANSI/NISO Z39.19 (a requirement of the Project), and it featured a useful classification of terms into broad subject categories independent of the hierarchical arrangement.
The Project commenced with discussions between the consultant and representatives of …show more content…
the
National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE), National Archives of Australia (NAA),
National Library of Australia (NLA), Dept of Finance and Administration (DOFA), Centrelink and portal lead agencies. A Workshop with representatives of key stakeholders canvassed the aims, operational requirements and desired outcomes. More extensive and detailed discussions took place with members of a reference group representing NOIE, DOFA, Centrelink and some subject portals. This group enthusiastically reviewed successive drafts, providing valuable contributions and comments to help achieve this version. Representatives of the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) reviewed the final draft and this version reflects their suggestions for terms relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The base list of terms from Canada was amended to reflect Australian needs and terminology.
Terms of purely Canadian relevance were deleted, and Canadian terminology and spelling was replaced with Australian versions. Additional terms were selected to augment the subject coverage for Australian use. Sources used in the selection of new terms included:
• Australian subject thesauri
• Commonwealth agency subject lists
• Portal browse lists, and
• Agency subject metadata
The APAIS Thesaurus, the Centrelink Thesaurus (originally based on APAIS), and the fed.gov browse lists were particularly valuable sources.
The terms included in TAGS are those currently used by Commonwealth agencies. Editorial judgment was applied in selection of terms and in establishing a ‘neutral’ hierarchy. Agencies do not necessarily use the same term for a subject, and sometimes a term has different connotations in different agencies. Similarly, Australian subject thesauri are not consistent in their use of terms, since thesauri are compiled over time, for different purposes, and reflect the view and subject focus of the sponsoring agency.
Examples of various ways of expressing the concept ‘Occupational health and safety’:
APAIS Thesaurus: }
Family Thesaurus: } Occupational health; Safety (two terms)
Australian Transport Index Thesaurus: }
Centrelink Thesaurus: Occupational health and safety
Health Thesaurus: OH&S (with a reference from Occupational health and safety)
Australian Occupational Health and Does not actually use the term ‘Occupational Safety Thesaurus health and safety’ because the entire Thesaurusconcerns this topic.
It does use the phrase in nonpreferredterms, e.g., ‘Occupational health and safetycommittees USE Health and safety committees’.
A balance between the need for the Thesaurus to be ‘high level’ whilst at the same time being
‘detailed enough to be useful’ for metadata authors and searchers was also sought.
Not all topics are covered to the same level of detail in TAGS, and subject matter unrelated to the business of government is excluded. The most detailed coverage is given to topics where no appropriate subject thesaurus already exists. In some cases detail is included selectively, for example the terms ‘Wool’ and Cotton’ are included but ‘Mohair’ is not. The hierarchical structure allows additional terms to be included later if necessary.
For subject areas where agencies already use an established subject thesaurus, such as health and agriculture, the TAGS terminology has been deliberately kept at a very high level. In
these cases it is recommended that TAGS be used in conjunction with the specialist thesaurus: TAGS is used to provide the general term(s), supplemented by specific terms from the specialist thesaurus. The Thesaurus has been kept to a manageable size, in order to encourage its adoption and use, and for ease of review and maintenance. It contains a total of 3216 terms, comprising 1430 Preferred terms and 1786 Non-preferred terms (entry terms or reference points). The structure is hierarchical, using a "tree" structure that starts with broad concepts
(top terms) which are then broken down into narrower concepts. The structure is fairly flat, with 571 top terms, and a maximum of 3-4 steps in each hierarchy.
A particular requirement of the Project was to map (cross-reference) from APAIS and AGIFT terms to TAGS terms whenever appropriate and possible. Because the APAIS Thesaurus is a subject thesaurus with a similar structure to the Canadian Thesaurus, and the Canadian
Thesaurus includes many terms (or synonyms) which are also in APAIS, the APAIS mapping was quite straightforward. APAIS terms which fall outside the scope of TAGS are not included.
Where there is a clear correspondence between AGIFT and TAGS the terms have been mapped.
Using the Thesaurus
Terminology
TAGS consists of Preferred terms and Non-preferred terms. Relationships between terms are expressed with standard notation
Subject thesaurus terms are used to describe the subject matter of resources – they describe what resources are about. This thesaurus is designed for post-coordinate retrieval – that is, each term represents a single concept, and as many terms as necessary may be used to describe a resource. This provides for flexibility and precision during resource discovery, because the searcher is able to combine terms to satisfy the particular enquiry. In indexing and retrieval, composite concepts may require the use of two or more keywords. For example, a resource dealing with ‘computer network security’ would have the TAGS terms ‘Computer networks’ and ‘Security measures’ assigned as Subject metadata.