TRT Development and Maintenance Procedure

March 5, 2009
Updated September 2, 2009

1.  NTL collects suggested TRT terms; primary sources are as follows:

a.  Submissions to TRT Suggestion forms

• TRB -- http://trt.trb.org/newterms.asp
• TRB-- TRIS candidate suggestions
• NTL -- http://ntl.bts.gov/tools/trt/trt_suggestion.html

b.  Monthly reports from TRIS

• most popular uncontrolled terms
• suggestions from TRB indexers, Lexicographer Michael Kleiber, and TLIB librarians at Northwestern and UC Berkeley

c.  Monthly reports of search logs from TRIS Online/NTL Integrated Search and other transportation search engines that the TRT Subcommittee, TRB, or NTL can secure with permission.

2.  NTL researches suggested terms for candidacy for the TRT

• all terms suggested as candidates to TRB or NTL are candidates
• for terms in search logs and monthly uncontrolled term TRIS reports, the following steps are applied:
• search TRIS Online for number of occurrences
• terms that occur 10 times are considered for candidacy
• NOTE: these lists are primarily informational and only selected terms are expected to be reviewed as TRT candidates from them.

3.  NTL creates Term Review Forms* for each candidate TRT term

a.  Primary sources are as follows:

• TRIS Online
• TRB Research in Progress (RIP)
• TRB Research Needs Statements (RNS) database
• WorldCat.org
• Transportation Meta Search
• Google Scholar

b.  terms appearing multiple times in the title of resources are noted

c.  variant forms and related concepts for the term are noted during this process

d.  TRT is searched and reviewed for appropriate placement of term (preferred or lead-in, as well as notation)

e.  term summary forms are uploaded to the TRT Term Wiki in Sharepoint http://www.transportationresearch.gov/NTL/TRT/Research%20Wiki/Forms/AllPages.aspx

    *see p.  4 for a blank Term Review Form

4.  Quarterly, NTL notifies Barbara Post at TRB of terms ready to review and submits Term Summary Form

• TRB then contacts the subcommittee alerting members of new quarterly terms ready for review in Sharepoint.
• Submission months are February, May, August, November
• Submission will include Term Review Forms for each term NTL researches

5.  Subcommittee completes review of terms by deadline*:

• Committee members access SharePoint, review each Term Review Form, and provide comments using discussion threads in SharePoint (see calendar on following page)
• New terms are forwarded to NTL and TRB (from Data Harmony) for upload on the web

    *see page 3 for a copy of the Term Review Schedule

6.  NTL announces new TRT terms

• notice sent to TRANLIB on quarterly basis (March, June, September, December)
• notice of new TRT terms posted to TRT websites at TRB and NTL

TERM REVIEW CALENDAR (repeated for each quarter):

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH THESAURUS (TRT)
TERM REVIEW v1.0

Date

Term

Proposed by

Citation(s) (examples,  popular uncontrolled terms, recently added uncontrolled terms or submitted by an individual)

Definition(for review purposes only)

Scope note (if needed)

Notational code

Broader term

Narrower term

Associative relationships

Related terms:

Cross-references:

USE/UF terms

Variant forms

Homographs

Usage/Warrant/Statistics (# of hits/search results for term in quotes,  e.g.,  automobile factories)

• Search term, variants, and/or synonyms identified if necessary
• Use a minimum of five sources.

Other/Comments

Updated 01:27 AM EDT, May 21, 2011