Journal Article: “A Survey of Knowledge Organization Systems of Research Fields: Resources and Challenges”
The article linked below was recently published by Quantitative Science Studies (QSS).
Title
A Survey of Knowledge Organization Systems of Research Fields: Resources and Challenges
Authors
Angelo Salatino
The Open University, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Tanay Aggarwal
The Open University, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Andrea Mannocci
Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione Alessandro Faedo Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
Francesco Osborne
The Open University, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Enrico Motta
The Open University, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Source
Quantitative Science Studies (QSS), 1–44.
DOI: 10.1162/qss_a_00363
Abstract
Knowledge organization systems (KOSs), such as term lists, thesauri, taxonomies, and ontologies, play a fundamental role in categorizing, managing, and retrieving information. In the academic domain, KOSs are often adopted for representing research areas and their relationships, primarily aiming to classify research articles, academic courses, patents, books, scientific venues, domain experts, grants, software, experiment materials, and several other relevant products and agents. These structured representations of research areas, widely embraced by many academic fields, have proven effective in empowering AI-based systems to enhance the retrievability of relevant documents, enable advanced analytic solutions to quantify the impact of academic research, and analyze and forecast research dynamics. This paper aims to present a comprehensive survey of the current KOS for academic disciplines. We analyzed and compared 45 KOSs according to five main dimensions: scope, structure, curation, usage, and links to other KOSs. Our results reveal a very heterogeneous scenario in terms of scope, scale, quality, and usage, highlighting the need for more integrated solutions for representing research knowledge across academic fields. We conclude by discussing the main challenges and the most promising future directions.
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.


Knowledge organization systems (KOSs), such as term lists, thesauri, taxonomies, and ontologies, play a fundamental role in categorizing, managing, and retrieving information. In the academic domain, KOSs are often adopted for representing research areas and their relationships, primarily aiming to classify research articles, academic courses, patents, books, scientific venues, domain experts, grants, software, experiment materials, and several other relevant products and agents. These structured representations of research areas, widely embraced by many academic fields, have proven effective in empowering AI-based systems to enhance the retrievability of relevant documents, enable advanced analytic solutions to quantify the impact of academic research, and analyze and forecast research dynamics. This paper aims to present a comprehensive survey of the current KOS for academic disciplines. We analyzed and compared 45 KOSs according to five main dimensions: scope, structure, curation, usage, and links to other KOSs. Our results reveal a very heterogeneous scenario in terms of scope, scale, quality, and usage, highlighting the need for more integrated solutions for representing research knowledge across academic fields. We conclude by discussing the main challenges and the most promising future directions.