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Vocabularies and Glossaries - Overview
The growth of information technology products and services for learning, education and training in different contexts and languages leads to the use of different names for the same or similar concepts. Also a word or phrase may be used for naming more than one concept.
Interoperability and interchange of information in learning, education, and training can be supported by an agreed common terminology and standard ways for specifying, identifying and referencing concepts, their features and components.
A vocabulary is a set of terms (words or phrases) naming concepts that may be linked and have a structure. Terms can have a variety of relationships with other terms. A vocabulary may be a simple list or may be a hierarchical taxonomy, a thesaurus or an ontology.
A glossary is a list of terms, usually in alphabetical order, with definitions.
Controlled vocabularies can be used to populate metadata about resources, in learner records or be used for querying repositories. Vocabularies can also be used to define navigation structures.
Specifications, standards and technical reports often provide glossaries with definitions of terms, acronyms, abbreviations, and notations used in them. They also provide a set of explanations of terms, which complement the definitions by specifying conceptual links within groups of related terms. |
Terms of use
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These contents have been obtained from the CEN/ISSS WS-LT Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the CEN/ISSS WS-LT for additional information on terms of use.
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CEN Workshop on Learning Technologies
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The CEN Workshop on Learning Technologies has developed a Repository of taxonomies/vocabularies for a European Learning Society.
The sharing of education related data and services makes them less costly, increases the supply, enhances the quality through incremental improvements and allows a shorter time delivery. However, sharing of data, content, tools and services can only be achieved when clear technical agreements are made between all parties concerned. The more global this agreement is, the greater the benefit. On the other hand different communities have their own identity, language, and vocabularies which are important to express exactly what is meant. For instance the educational system in North America is differently structured than in Europe and it uses different terminology. Even in Europe great differences exist between different sectors. For example, a thesaurus applicable for vocational education is different from the one for schools. These naturally grown differences make the application of standards more complex and often less effective. In addition vocabularies are created again and again sometimes with differences that are not essential but that inhibit interoperability.
The objectives are to develop two important measures that will increase the interoperability of meta-data and services:- Harmonisation of vocabularies;
- Mappings of vocabularies.
CEN Workshop on Learning Technologies Web Site |
Terms of use
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These contents have been obtained from the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) official Web site for additional information on terms of use.
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Aviation Industry CBT Committee
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CBT and training jargon are frequently used in these publications. In many cases these terms may have more than one meaning in the training or computer community. In other cases, these terms may be obscure and poorly defined in standard references like the dictionary.
When used in AICC publications, the terms should always be used in a way consistent with the definitions that appear in its glossary. The AICC does not intend for these terms to be used by all its members in their own company's publications. Although any group is welcome to use these terms as defined here, the intent of this document is to promote consistent usage in AICC publications only - not the world at large.AICC Publications Web Site |
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These contents have been obtained from the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee Subcommitte 36 (ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36) official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee Subcommitte 36 (ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36) official Web site for additional information on terms of use.
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ISO/IEC JTC1
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The purpose of the work of the ISO/IEC JTC1 WG1 is to define core definitions and associated terms used in information technology applications for learning, education, and training. It presents selected definitions and associated terms, which denote concepts relevant to this field, focusing on the terms necessary for standards development.
In document SC36 N0051, there was a proposal to focus the work of WG1 to concentrate on, “The development of a quality and harmonized SC36 Vocabulary” and “SC36 in general, and through SC36/WG1 in particular, maintain content and maintenance control of all definitions and terms which are to form part of the SC36 Vocabulary”. Over the intervening time, the focus shifted from the overall management of this harmonized vocabulary to developing an electronic registry of terms and definitions. In the March 2007 London SC36 Plenary, this focus was changed back with the cessation of work on the registry projects.ISO/IEC JTC1 WG1 Web Site |
Terms of use
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These contents have been obtained from the IMS Global Learning Consortium official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the IMS Global Learning Consortium official Web site for additional information on terms of use.
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IMS Global Learning Consortium
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The IMS Vocabulary Definition Exchange (VDEX) specification defines a grammar for the exchange of value lists of various classes: collections often denoted "vocabulary". Specifically, VDEX defines a grammar for the exchange of simple machine-readable lists of values, or terms, together with information that may aid a human being in understanding the meaning or applicability of the various terms. VDEX may be used to express valid data for use in instances of IEEE LOM, IMS Metadata, IMS Learner Information Package and ADL SCORM, etc, for example. In these cases, the terms are often not human language words or phrases but more abstract tokens. VDEX can also express strictly hierarchical schemes in a compact manner while allowing for more loose networks of relationship to be expressed if required.
IMS Vocabulary Definition Exchange Specification Web Page |
| This category includes a number of specifications and recommendations related to the "Vocabularies and Glossaries" area which either are not targeted specifically to the learning technologies field either have been developed by institutions not specifically focused to defining standards. |
Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS)
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The Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) is an RDF vocabulary (developed by the W3C) for representing semi-formal knowledge organization systems (KOSs), such as thesauri, taxonomies, classification schemes and subject heading lists. Because SKOS is based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF) these representations are machine-readable and can be exchanged between software applications and published on the World Wide Web.
SKOS has been designed to provide a low-cost migration path for porting existing organization systems to the Semantic Web. SKOS also provides a lightweight, intuitive conceptual modeling language for developing and sharing new KOSs. It can be used on its own, or in combination with more-formal languages such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL). SKOS can also be seen as a bridging technology, providing the missing link between the rigorous logical formalism of ontology languages such as OWL and the chaotic, informal and weakly-structured world of Web-based collaboration tools, as exemplified by social tagging applications.
The aim of SKOS is not to replace original conceptual vocabularies in their initial context of use, but to allow them to be ported to a shared space, based on a simplified model, enabling wider re-use and better interoperability.SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Primer |
ASPECT Vocabulary Bank for Education (VBE)
An example of a vocabulary service can be seen in the ASPECT Vocabulary Bank for Education (VBE).
It is a repository in which multilingual terms and vocabularies are published. The VBE is a Web application that enables participants to search or browse vocabularies and allows for the import and export of vocabularies in several exchange formats. It manages all historical information relating to terms and vocabularies and has a RESTful API for synchronisation between systems. Some of the vocabularies are used for live validation of Learning Resource Exchange metadata.
ASPECT has also produced a report on representation of vocabularies and formats for supporting interoperability between systems that utilize them for classification, indexing and retrieval purposes. Multilinguality and semantic interoperability are seen as a priority.ASPECT Vocabulary Bank for Education |
Zthes
The Zthes family of specifications facilitate interoperability for applications that deal with thesauri - semantic hierarchies of terms as described in ISO 2788 and ANSI/NISO Z39.19.
Zthes originated from work related to the Z39.50 search protocol and is a widely used specification internationally, especially in library communities. The Zthes abstract model (currently version 1.0) is represented in an XML format. An extended version of Zthes v1.0 is used extensively in the UK as part of the Department for Children, Education and Families Vocabulary Management Service and the ASPECT Vocabulary Bank for Education.Zthes Web Site |
Topic Maps
Topic Maps is a standard for the representation and interchange of knowledge, with an emphasis on the findability of information. The ISO standard is formally known as ISO/IEC 13250:2003.
Topic Maps provide links between concepts and are similar to Concept Maps or Mind Maps. The ISO/IEC 13250:2003 that can be used to express curriculum and vocabulary information. A topic map uses topics (that can be any concept such as people, events or ideas), associations (the relationships between topics), and occurrences (information about a topic).Topic Maps Web Site |
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