New Ways of Mapping Knowledge Organization Systems. Using a Semi­Automatic Matching­Procedure for Building Up Vocabulary Crosswalks

Abstract: Crosswalks between different vocabularies are an indispensable prerequisite for integrated and high­quality search scenarios in distributed data environments. Offered through the web and linked with each other they act as a central link so that users could move back and forth between different data sources being online available.
In the past, crosswalks between different thesauri have been primarily developed manually. In the long run the intellectual updating of such crosswalks requires huge personnel expenses. Therefore, an integration of automatic matching procedures, as for example Ontology Matching Tools, seems pretty obvious.
On the basis of computer­generated correspondences between the Thesaurus for Economics (STW) and the Thesaurus for the Social Sciences (TheSoz) our contribution will explore cross­border approaches between IT­assisted tools and procedures on the one hand
and external quality measurements via domain experts on the other hand. Thus, we will present techniques to semi­automatically perform vocabulary crosswalks. Due to intellectually evaluated results of multiple matching tools in the forerun, quality statements concerning the reliability of further computer­generated crosswalks can be made. This way, the application of various tools and procedures gradually contributes to an increase in quality. Moreover, on the long­term it facilitates a continuous update of high­quality vocabulary crosswalks.