TRT - Management and Process
The National Transportation Library's Perspective and Process
for Management of the Transportation Research Thesaurus
Philosophical Perspective
“Retrieval of information on a specific subject is based on
language. If the vocabularies of people assigning indexing terms
and those seeking the information are not consistent, searchers will
miss needed items and retrieve unwanted information . . . A thesaurus is
a controlled vocabulary arranged in a known order in which equivalent,
homographic, hierarchical, and associative relationships among terms are
clearly displayed and identified by standardized, reciprocal
relationship indicators.” (NCHRP Report 450. Transportation
Research Thesaurus and User’s Guide. 2001. Forward)
That is what the TRT is. Vocabularies are almost by
definition uncontrollable. That is, the nuances of communication
with words can change constantly and in fact can not only go from one
end of the spectrum to the other, but can waiver back and forth in the
same conversation. BAD, for example, can mean GOOD. Language
must by its nature evolve, as learning and invention evolve, but in the
context of organizing information resources, it is valuable to attempt
to tame language, in order to bring like concepts together. That
is what the TRT is about.
The TRT is not and should not be about inclusion of every
possible word that could ever be used in a given concept. It is
about creating a means for bringing like things and similar concepts
together; therefore enabling further discovery. The hierarchy, or
placement in relationship, of any term is far more important than the
inclusion of every word that might be used for a given concept.
When the TRT was created, it was created around the body of
indexing terms use in the TRIS databases. That is, an existing
list of unorganized words that had been assigned over a period of years
was massaged and organized to form the TRT. Because the indexing
covered many disciplines and many aspects of the concept transportation,
and because transportation is not a pure science, but an applied
amalgamation of numerous sciences, the terms selected for the TRT, came
from numerous disciplines.
As we move forward there is a significant need to keep the
selected terms focused on the relationship to transportation and not
attempt to manage vocabularies more appropriately managed by experts in
those fields. Therefore, a concept might be covered in the TRT by
a broader collective term that encompasses more specific concepts from
another field. As an example, the term “bond graph”,
while being a specific mathematical model, can be contained in the
general term graphs in the TRT. The specific term is still an
acceptable uncontrolled term, but the general TRT term brings that work
together with related works in transportation.
This is the philosophical environment for managing the vocabulary
that the National Transportation Library has inherited and
embraced. The TRT was conceived and created specifically to serve
the research community in using the TRIS databases. As the focus
on taxonomies, term relationships, and content management is growing in
this and every field, more attention is being focused on the usability
and usefulness of the TRT. It is being mined in part by others to
serve specific needs, and its use generally is increasing.
The National Transportation Library assumed responsibility for
the TRT for the transportation information community in 2007.
Before that time, NTL was an active user and supporter. In the new
role of manager of the TRT, the NTL has established new procedures for
change and review. The activity is to be managed by NTL staff,
with comment from the TRB Library and Information Science in
Transportation Committee TRT Subcommittee.
Maintenance Process
Review Suggestions:
NTL Staff, under the direct supervision of the Director of the
NTL will receive and review proposed and suggested changes from the user
community on a regular basis, usually monthly. Input from TRB and
from TRIS, NTL Integrated Search and TRT users will be reviewed taking
into consideration:
- Frequency of use
- Existing coverage
- Relationship, relevance and applicability to transportation
- No identifiers (formal names)
- LCSH/other vocabulary use
Suggestions will be reviewed with specific consideration of
literature indexed in existing databases, evolving and developing
concepts as demonstrated in electronic communications, and the ability
of the existing terms to cover the concept. As terms are studied,
definitions, scope notes, term notation and preferred terms will be
considered and documented for review.
Update Thesaurus Master:
Terms worthy of further consideration as candidates will be
entered into the system housing the authoritative version of the TRT by
NTL authorized staff. Currently the TRT is housed in the Data Harmony
Thesaurus Master application created by Access Innovations. NTL
maintains this application on its servers at the USDOT and exports from
Data Harmony regular updates for populating the various iterations of
TRT in use. NTL staff will add candidate terms, definitions, scope
notes, non-preferred terms and notation.
Submit Change List to LIST TRT Subcommittee:
NTL staff, after updating Data Harmony with appropriate changes
including candidate terms, scope notes, definitions, notation and
non-preferred terms, will provide new changes, and changes under
consideration (candidates) to the TRB LIST TRT Subcommittee for review
and comment. This quality team of information users will provide
NTL with valuable user feedback at the point of review, as well as by
providing additional suggestions to be considered by NTL staff.
The quarterly change list will be provided to the Chair of the Committee
for distribution. All members of the committee will have
read access to the Thesaurus Master for further study.
Comments Returned to NTL:
Comments will be returned to the NTL TRT Team for
consideration. After review, final decisions will be made to
accept, reject or park candidate terms. Updates to notes,
definitions, notation and status will be considered at this time.
Accepted changes will be documented and made in the Thesaurus Master.
Distribution of Changes:
Updates from the Data Harmony application will be exported
quarterly to the NTL website. TRB and other registered users will
receive notice of availability of the update as soon as it is available.
The public TRTs will contain all accepted terms, definitions, scope
notes and non-preferred terms, but will not contain candidate terms or
history information. Data Harmony does maintain the history, so
terms can be reconsidered at any time as concepts change.
A means of automatically pushing updates to registered users is
being developed by NTL Technical Team.
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