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The purpose of this paper is to examine and provide an insight into Canadian post‐secondary institutional repositories (IRs) with respect to user interface features and knowledge organization systems (KOS) used.

The approach is to explore all Canadian post‐secondary institutions and their user interfaces to establish the type of searching and browsing features they have used and whether or not they have made use of KOS such as subject heading lists or classification schemes.

A directory of 27 IRs in Canada is created. Incorporation of KOS in institutional repository is evaluated. The examination is focuses on accessibility, searching, KOS use, and retrieval. Evaluation shows that few IRs have incorporated complex KOS such as controlled vocabularies. Browsing and searching options are available, but user interfaces are usually not modified to enhance information retrieval.

This is the first paper examining Canadian IRs from the perspectives of searching, browsing and the use of KOS.

Through a theoretical review of the literature, this chapter assesses the potential of different knowledge organisation systems (KOS) to support corporate knowledge management systems (KMS), namely digital libraries (DL) in companies and other institutions. Questions are framed through which the chapter discusses how classical KOS, such as nomenclatures, classification systems, thesauri and ontologies, are able to reflect explicit knowledge in sense of the Semantic Web and also introduces persons as documents along with folksonomies as a means for externalising implicit knowledge in sense of the Web 2.0.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the basics of semiotic analysis and concept theory that represent two dominant approaches to knowledge representation, and explore how these approaches are fruitful for knowledge organization.

In particular the semiotic theory formulated by the American philosopher C.S. Peirce and the concept theory formulated by Ingetraut Dahlberg are investigated. The paper compares the differences and similarities between these two theories of knowledge representation.

The semiotic model is a general and unrestricted model of signs and Dahlberg's model is thought from the perspective and demand of better knowledge organization system (KOS) development. It is found that Dahlberg's concept model provides a detailed method for analyzing and representing concepts in a KOS, where semiotics provides the philosophical context for representation.

This paper is the first to combine theories of knowledge representation, semiotic and concept theory, within the context of knowledge organization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of applying the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) as an established knowledge organization system (KOS) for enhancing social tagging, with the ultimate purpose of improving subject indexing and information retrieval.

Over 11,000 Intute metadata records in politics were used. Totally, 28 politics students were each given four tasks, in which a total of 60 resources were tagged in two different configurations, one with uncontrolled social tags only and another with uncontrolled social tags as well as suggestions from a controlled vocabulary. The controlled vocabulary was DDC comprising also mappings from the Library of Congress Subject Headings.

The results demonstrate the importance of controlled vocabulary suggestions for indexing and retrieval: to help produce ideas of which tags to use, to make it easier to find focus for the tagging, to ensure consistency and to increase the number of access points in retrieval. The value and usefulness of the suggestions proved to be dependent on the quality of the suggestions, both as to conceptual relevance to the user and as to appropriateness of the terminology.

No research has investigated the enhancement of social tagging with suggestions from the DDC, an established KOS, in a user trial, comparing social tagging only and social tagging enhanced with the suggestions. This paper is a final reflection on all aspects of the study.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate how knowledge-based organizational support (KOS) influences organizational performance through project management.

Data were obtained from a survey and from archival sources with a time lag for the dependent variable; structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The sample was made up of 106 organizations in Colombia, considering two key respondents from each organization: general manager and project manager.

Results show that KOS is an antecedent of project management and project performance. Furthermore, project management and project performance play a mediating role between KOS and organizational performance.

Research limitations are the following: use of cross-sectional data with a time lag, one single unit of analysis, organizational performance analyzed only from a financial perspective. Despite these limitations, the paper puts forward relevant implications that bridge knowledge management and project management literature by clarifying the conditions under which knowledge organizational support generates a significant impact on organizational performance. Intellectual capital and knowledge management dynamic capabilities play a relevant role in this connection.

The findings have important practical implications: decision-makers are to allocate effectively hard and soft resources to configure a knowledge-based infrastructure, through the development of intellectual capital and knowledge management dynamic capabilities.

The findings are generalizable to projects management in the context of non-government organizations or other social-oriented initiatives.

This study assumes and operationalizes organizational support from a knowledge-based perspective, represented by intellectual capital and knowledge management dynamic capabilities, providing empirical evidence of the way KOS influences organizational performance through project management and project performance.

The need for inclusive and logically consistent representation of diverse and even confronting viewpoints on the domain knowledge has been widely discussed in the literature in the past decade. The purpose of this paper is to propose a generic model for building an open coherent diversified knowledge organization system (KOS).

The proposed model incorporates a generic epistemological component, the validity scope type, assigned to each statement in the constructed KOS. Statements are clustered by their association with various validity scope types into internally coherent subsystems. These subsystems form a knowledge organization network connected through the universal (consensual) subsystems with more than one validity scope type. The model extends the Galili’s Cultural Content Representation paradigm, which divides the knowledge content of a scientific theory into two confronting parts: body and periphery.

The knowledge organization network model makes it possible to comparatively examine similarities and differences among various viewpoints and theories on the domain knowledge. The presented approach conforms with the principle of Open Knowledge Network initiative for creation of open accessible knowledge.

The proposed model can be used for ontological reasoning by a variety of information services, such as ontology-based decision-support and learning systems, diversified search and customer management applications.

The model enables explicit representation of social and cultural minority voices and historical knowledge in the KOS.

The main contribution of the proposed model is that it generalizes and enhances various previously proposed representations of epistemological aspects of KOS and allows for multiple inter-linked subsystems to coherently co-exist as part of the extensible network.

The paper aims to develop a prototype middleware framework between different terminology resources in order to provide a subject cross‐browsing service for library portal systems.

Nine terminology experts were interviewed to collect appropriate knowledge to support the development of a theoretical framework for the research. Based on this, a simplified software‐based prototype system was constructed incorporating the knowledge acquired. The prototype involved mappings between the computer science schedule of the Dewey Decimal Classification (which acted as a spine) and two controlled vocabularies, UKAT and ACM Computing Classification. Subsequently, six further experts in the field were invited to evaluate the prototype system and provide feedback to improve the framework.

The major findings showed that, given the large variety of terminology resources distributed throughout the web, the proposed middleware service is essential to integrate technically and semantically the different terminology resources in order to facilitate subject cross‐browsing. A set of recommendations are also made, outlining the important approaches and features that support such a cross‐browsing middleware service.

Cross‐browsing features are lacking in current library portal meta‐search systems. Users are therefore deprived of this valuable retrieval provision. This research investigated the case for such a system and developed a prototype to fill this gap.

The common understanding of generalization/specialization relations assumes the relation to be equally strong between a classifier and any of its related classifiers and also at every level of the hierarchy. Assigning a grade of relative distance to represent the level of similarity between the related pairs of classifiers could correct this situation, which has been considered as an oversimplification of the psychological account of the real-world relations. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The evaluation followed an end-user perspective. In order to obtain a consistent data set of specialization distances, a group of 21 persons was asked to assign values to a set of relations from a selection of terms from the AGROVOC thesaurus. Then two sets of representations of the relations between the terms were built, one according to the calculated concept of specialization weights and the other one following the original order of the thesaurus. In total, 40 persons were asked to choose between the two sets following an A/B test-like experiment. Finally, short interviews were carried out after the test to inquiry about their decisions.

The results show that the use of this information could be a valuable tool for search and information retrieval purposes and for the visual representation of knowledge organization systems (KOS). Furthermore, the methodology followed in the study turned out to be useful for detecting inconsistencies in the thesaurus and could thus be used for quality control and optimization of the hierarchical relations.

The use of this relative distance information, namely, “concept specialization distance,” has been proposed mainly at a theoretical level. In the current experiment, the authors evaluate the potential use of this information from an end-user perspective, not only for text-based interfaces but also its application for the visual representation of KOS. Finally, the methodology followed for the elaboration of the concept specialization distance data set showed potential for detecting possible inconsistencies in KOS.

The purpose of this paper is to report an investigation into the ways in which Canadian digital library collections have incorporated knowledge organization systems into their search interfaces.

A combination of data‐gathering techniques was used. These were as follows: a review of the literature related to the application of knowledge organization systems, deep scanning of Canadian governmental and academic institutions web sites on the web, identify and contact researchers in the area of knowledge organization, and identify and contact people in the governmental organizations who are involved in knowledge organization and information management.

A total of 33 digital collections were identified that have made use of some type of knowledge organization system. Thesauri, subject heading lists and classification schemes were the widely used knowledge organization systems in the surveyed Canadian digital library collections.

The target population for this research was limited to governmental and academic digital library collections.

An evaluation of the knowledge organization systems interfaces showed that searching, browsing and navigation facilities as well as bilingual features call for improvements.

This research contributes to the following areas: digital libraries, knowledge organization systems and services and search interface design.

This study aims to present a new framework for ethical creation and evaluation of multi-perspective knowledge organization systems.

Applying Held's understanding of the ethics of care, this paper proposes five operative criteria for ethical building and evaluation of multi-perspective knowledge representation and organization systems.

This paper argues that a carefully designed multipoint view of representation and organization conforms to the proposed ethical criteria and shifts concerns associated with the expectation of neutrality of library information professionals to the necessity to humanize and diversify the representation and organization of knowledge to build inclusive and equitable systems.

This paper presents multi-perspectiveness as key to ethical knowledge organization. The paper proposes a generic taxonomy of the main stages in the creation of multi-perspective knowledge representation and organization systems and demonstrates how to apply the proposed framework in each stage to ensure ethical outcomes.