Download ISKOUK-July2012-ChristineUrquhart

Classification in the curriculum“Dew(e)y” eyed or Semantically
speaking?
Christine Urquhart
My perspective
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Categorisation debates – from Aristotle, Plato onwards
Lakoff, George. Women, fire and dangerous things.
Rosch, Eleanor: prototype theory
Handbook of categorization in cognitive science
(contributors include Stevan Harnad)
• Bowker and Star. Sorting things out: classification and
its consequences
• Weller, Katrin. Knowledge representation in the social
semantic web
• Teaching – basic business systems analysis – object
oriented analysis – ontologies – and what is a concept?
Related work
• Several surveys including:
– Pattuelli, M. Cristina (2010). Knowledge
organization landscape: a content analysis of
introductory courses. Journal of Information
Science 36(6),812-822.
(On ALA accredited courses, 34 LIS schools)
– Hudon, Michelle (2010). Teaching classification
1990-2010. CCQ, 48(1), 64-82.
(knowledge organisation, teaching with online tools,
conceptual and technical, teaching content analysis is
difficult)
Current overview - UK
• Approach
– Used Pattuelli most popular categories as basis – but
added semantic web
– Convenience sample of available module descriptions
on some UK programmes – computer science based as
well as LIS based programmes
– Limitations
• currency of module databases (if available)?
• variation in content organisation, difficult to ascertain
emphasis on particular topics, implied content??
• not possible to access module descriptions on some
university websites
General observations I
• Cataloguing
– Various approaches, generally an emphasis on
standards in modules for librarianship
programmes (but this is not universal)
• Subject access and vocabulary control
– Different emphases, and approaches
• Metadata
– Mentioned but difficult to ascertain treatment
General observations II
• Classification and categorisation
– Different approaches here – some with emphasis
on information retrieval, others with more
emphasis on domain analysis, and the modules
that were “cat and class” tend to stick to general
classification schemes
• Semantic web
– Not much evidence in “librarianship” modules
(much as Pattuelli found)
General observations III
• Computer science based modules
NB Small selection!
– in place of cataloguing standards – other
standards such as RDF, object oriented design
– Ontologies much more prominent
– Semantic web – more prominent
Does this matter?
• Is there an area of overlap in the middle?
– Possibly? Thesaurus construction?
• BUT
– Concept based thesaurus (evolved from object oriented ideas)
versus
– Term-based thesaurus
• Paradigm shift – are students prepared for this?
• SKOS – simple knowledge organisation system discussion –
where is this?
• Philosophically – what do we mean by a concept?
• From cognitive psychology – what can we learn about
categorisation?
Onward....
• Range of speakers today to tackle the philosophical, psychological
and pragmatic problems
• The different approaches evident from the module survey – suggest
that some discussions are necessary
• From Hudon:
• “Conceptually, students must learn how to analyze the contents of
an information resource, to identify topics, concepts and facets, to
discriminate between core and peripheral elements of contents in
relation to specific contexts, systems, and needs. Technically,
students must learn how to navigate classification structures and to
translate each topic, concept, and facet into an appropriate
representation in the form of, for example, a class number.”
• Are we getting this right – whether in universities or in the
workplace? Are we talking to the right people?