The SIS Thesaurus Management System
SIS-TMS
Contact person: Martin
Doerr
Complete
Documentation (including users' manuals & programmers' manuals)
TMS is a system to create and maintain
multilingual thesauri. Its distinct features are the possibility to
modify or create dynamically semantic relation types within and between
thesauri., and the presentation of arbitrary views of the network with
coloured graphs. It thereby is a unique tool to analyse the logical
structure and consistency of thesauri and one of the best solutions
to manage consistently in a distributed environment a set of correlated
terminology resources for classification and data access.
SIS-TMS consists of a terminology server for integration with
heterogeneous elec-tronic collections, a graphical browser for cataloguers
and end-users, and a tool to cooperatively develop multilingual thesauri.
The distinct features of the TMS are its capability: to develop and
access multiple thesauri and their interrelations; to create any relevant
view thereon; to specialize dynamically any kind of relation into new
ones; to manage partial releases; and to create consistent update increments
for federated collection databases.
The SIS-TMS graphical user interface allows the unconstraint navigation
within and between different thesauri and the execution of predefined
queries and graphical views to identify concepts for cataloguing or
database queries, to identify translations or equivalent expressions
for information access in heterogeneous environments, and to control
the quality and logical consistency of a system of interlinked thesauri
during the development. Configuration tables allow for localization.
The SIS-TMS server can be integrated in a distributed, heterogeneous
environment. As a central, eventually repeated component, it can replace
the cumbersome local implementation and population of thesaurus management
features in collection databases and library systems, by access through
its programmatic interface. It further allows automatic term expansion
and translation in queries to distributed data sources.
The means provided by SIS-TMS to maintain consistency of equivalence
relations between cooperatively developed thesauri is a unique feature.
The SIS-TMS system is an application of the Semantic
Index System, a general purpose object-oriented semantic network
database, product of ICS-FORTH. Its schema includes the principles of
the ISO 2788 and 5964 standards for monolingual and multi-lingual thesauri.
