What are We Thinking?: Using Faceted Classification and Tagging to Enhance Subject Access to the Public Mind Elise Dunham The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research University of Connecticut SAA MDOR Meeting August 13, #saa14 #mdor14
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Datasets
Question Text, Response Categories, & Marginals
The Power of iPOLL This day in history… Current events Clinton’s visit to UConn=Women in Politics MH17=Air Safety in Wake of Disaster Nixon resignation, August 8, 1974 Civil Rights Act of 1964, July 2, 1964
The Power of iPOLL Topics: FAMILY EQUALITY SEX GROUPS
Goals Develop system for concept-based classification of manageable content Implement workflows for identifying conceptual links between content at point of acquisition/creation
Benefits of Faceted Classification & Tagging Flexible & agile Indexer friendly End user friendly “Quick” startup
Iterative Project Steps Read & learn – The Accidental Taxonomist, Heather Hedden – Simmons GSLIS Taxonomy & Controlled Vocabulary course, Heather Hedden – ICPSR & NYT vocabularies – Concepts: FRSAR, LC FAST, Syntactic Indexing Develop aboutness model to identify facets
Iterative Project Steps cont’d Develop controlled set of tags after analyzing: – Current iPOLL Topics – Topics at a Glance – User searches Develop backward- and forward- compatible infrastructure Assign tags to content
Study Survey Samples Variables Power of iPOLL briefs Primary source Survey questions Topics Sample Description Methodology Types Secondary source Press releases
Challenges Public opinion=inherently controversial Tensions between theoretical purity & implementation Survey questions are sometimes shorter than a tweet
Ideas Moving Forward Tag-a-thon Outside review Formal user testing/analysis Linked data: be ready
Thank you! Elise The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
Resources GESIS, “Improving precision and recall in study retrieval: a concept for thesaurus-based syntactic indexing,” IASSIST Conference, 2014, _2F_Siegers.pptxhttp:// 2014_2F_Siegers.pptx Heather Hedden, The Accidental Taxonomist, Alexis C. Madrigal, “How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood,” , hollywood/282679/ hollywood/282679/ OCLC Research, FAST, Maja Zumer, Athena Salaba, and Marcia Lei Zeng, “Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR): A Conceptual Model of Aboutness,” from Asian Digital Libraries: Looking Back 10 Years and Forging New Frontiers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4822, 2007, pp ,