Interoperability and evaluation of thesaurus based on ISO 25964 standard (Part I & II): A case study of Philosophy Thesaurus

AbstractThis study aimed to evaluate Philosophy Thesaurus of Research Center for Islamic Documents and Information Management according to ISO 25964 Standard (Part I & II) and also to examine the interoperability with other vocabulary control systems (ASFA Thesaurus and Persian Subject Headings). This research method was an applied survey in terms of purpose, and a survey-descriptive study in terms of data collection. The research population included the terms of Philosophy Thesaurus, which were selected 375 terms by using Morgan's table and random sampling method. The research population in the interoperability section was also the first six levels of the Philosophy Thesaurus with 85 terms. The tool and method of data collection was, respectively, a researcher-made checklist according to ISO 25964 standards and direct observation. The results showed that the compliance rate of ISO 25964 standard (part I) in the Philosophy Thesaurus is %75.52. The highest and lowest levels of compliance was related to the "software management" component (%79.34) and the "semantic relations" component (%66.66), respectively. The results of the interoperability of Philosophy Thesaurus with ASFA Thesaurus according to ISO 25964 standard (Part II) showed a %24.88 mapping, the highest of which was exact equivalence mapping (%49.41). Also, %42.47 of the terms has the possibility of automatic mapping. Interoperability with Persian Subject Headings was %89.41, the highest rate is related to exact equivalence mapping (%47.06). Also, %30 of the selected terms of the Philosophy Thesaurus can be automatically mapped with the terms of Persian Subject Headings. The interoperability in the thesaurus is an economical and efficient solution to save the high costs of producing and compiling and expanding the thesaurus. Also, paying attention to the rules of interoperability in accordance with the standards is the basis for data integration, and the user can achieve an efficient search with improvement precision and recall, regardless of the time, place, and type of database.