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Education and Training for Knowledge Organization – Knowledge Organization 2023, Special Issue

Abstract: Education and training in the field of Knowledge organization (KO) have been conducted in various academic disciplines, including Library, Archives, and Information Science Education. Within this field, the term KO has been specifically used in connection with formal education across field and disciplines, but specially in Archival Studies, Library and Information Science and Computing. This can be found in the works of Patuelli (2010), Rehman and Alajmi (2017), Salaba (2020). As new disciplinary practices emerge, the boundaries of KO are expanding. With this special issue, our goal is to explore diverse perspectives and approaches in KO education. We would like to express our gratitude to the authors and reviewers who have contributed to this special issue, as their valuable insights have enhanced our understanding of what is taught in a broad conception of KO. This special issue features the work of ten authors who come from Brazil, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, and Uruguay. Their contributions not only provide insights into different teaching experiences but also offer a geographical diversity of approaches. We hope that the articles included in this issue will not only serve as a catalyst for future research in this area but also inspire further exploration and development of KO education.

Table of Contents:

Education and Training for Knowledge Organization: Introduction to this Special Issue, pp. 157-159
Education in Knowledge Organization (KO), pp. 160–181
- Abstract: This article provides analyses, describes dilemmas, and suggests way forwards in the teaching of knowledge organization (KO). The general assumption of the article is that theoretical problems in KO must be the point of departure for teaching KO. Section 2 addresses the teaching of practical, applied and professional KO, focusing on learning about specific knowledge organization systems (KOS), specific standards, and specific methods for organizing knowledge, but provides arguments for not isolating these aspects from theoretical issues. Section 3 is about teaching theoretical and academic KO, in which the focus is on examining the bases on which KOSs and knowledge organization processes such as classifying and indexing are founded. This basically concerns concepts and conceptual relations and should not be based on prejudices about the superiority of either humans or computers for KO. Section 4 is about the study of education in KO, which is considered important because it is about how the field is monitoring itself and about how it should be shaping its own future. Section 5 is about the role of the ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization in education of KO, emphasizing the need for an interdisciplinary source that may help improve the conceptual clarity in the field. The conclusion suggests some specific recommendations for curricula in KO based on the author’s view of KO.
- Keywords: Knowledge Organization (KO); Education in KO; SKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization
How To Teach Domain Ontology-based Knowledge Graph Construction? An Irish Experiment, pp. 182–201
- Abstract: Domains represent concepts which belong to specific parts of the world. The particularized meaning of words linguistically encoding such domain concepts are provided by domain specific resources. The explicit meaning of such words are increasingly captured computationally using domain-specific ontologies, which, even for the same reference domain, are most often than not semantically incompatible. As information systems that rely on domain ontologies expand, there is a growing need to not only design domain ontologies and domain ontology-grounded Knowledge Graphs (KGs) but also to align them to general standards and conventions for interoperability. This often presents an insurmountable challenge to domain experts who have to additionally learn the construction of domain ontologies and KGs. Until now, several research methodologies have been proposed by different research groups using different technical approaches and based on scenarios of different domains of application. However, no methodology has been proposed which not only facilitates designing conceptually well-founded ontologies, but is also, equally, grounded in the general pedagogical principles of knowledge organization and, thereby, flexible enough to teach, and reproduce vis-à-vis domain experts. The purpose of this paper is to provide such a general, pedagogically flexible semantic knowledge modelling ethodology. We exemplify the methodology by examples and illustrations from a professional-level digital healthcare course, and conclude with an evaluation grounded in technological parameters as well as user experience design principles.
- Keywords: Knowledge Organization Education, Healthcare Informatics Education, Domain Ontology, Digital Transformation, Domain Knowledge, Knowledge Graph.
The Knowledge Organization Education Within and Beyond the Master of Library and Information Science, 202–213
- Abstract: By analyzing 63 English-speaking institutions that offer ALA-accredited master’s programs in library and information studies, this research aims to explore the education for knowledge organization (KO) at different levels and across fields. This research examines the KO courses that are the required courses and elective courses in the MLIS programs, that are offered in other master’s programs and graduate certificate programs, that are adapted to the undergraduate degree and certificate programs, and that are particularly developed for programs other than MLIS. The findings indicate that the great majority of MLIS programs still have a focus on or a significant component of knowledge organization as their required course and include the knowledge organization elective courses, particularly library cataloging and classification, on their curriculum. However, there is a variety of the offerings of KO related courses across the programs in an institution or in the same program across the institutions. It shows a promising trend that the traditional and new KO courses play an important role in many other programs, at different levels and across fields. With the conventional, adapted, or innovative content, these courses demonstrate that the principles and skills of knowledge organization are applicable to a wide variety of settings, can be integrated with other disciplinary knowledge and emerging technologies, and meet the needs of different career pathways and groups of learners.
- Keywords: knowledge organization, curricula, library and information schools
The Universal Decimal Classification in the Organization of Knowledge: Representing the Concept of Ethics, 214–226
- Abstract: Training in knowledge organization (KO) involves an understanding of theories for the construction, maintenance, use, and evaluation of logical documentary languages. Teaching these KO concepts in LIS programs are related basically to accessing documents and retrieving their intellectual content. This study focuses on access to documents and exploring the ethical theme in all its dimensions as applied to the teaching of an undergraduate discipline as part of a Bachelor of Library Science degree offered at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). As a methodology, a Project-based Pedagogy strategy is used in the teaching of a discipline called “Classification Systems: UDC” for students to classify a documentary resource from a collection on ethics. The teaching of bibliographic classification requires students to learn how to use the mechanisms available to form a notation as well as to use a syntax schema (tables) appropriately. Students also learn to determine a place for the document in the collection, considering the knowledge represented in the collection as a whole. Altogether, such a practice can help students to understand the theory underlying a classification system. The results show that the students were able to understand the basic concepts of knowledge organization. The students were also able to observe that the elements of the different tables of a classification tool are essential mechanisms for the organization of knowledge in other contexts, especially for specific purposes.
- Keywords: Knowledge Organization, Universal Decimal Classification, Teaching Knowledge Organization, Project-based Pedagogy
Interdisciplinarity and Postgraduate Teaching of Knowledge Organization (KO): Elements for a Necessary Dialogue, pp. 227–241
- Abstract: Interdisciplinarity implies the previous existence of disciplinary fields and not their dissolution. As a general objective, we propose to establish an initial approach to the emphasis given to interdisciplinarity in the teaching of KO, through the teaching staff responsible for postgraduate courses focused on -or related to the KO, in Ibero-American universities. For conducting the research, the framework and distribution of a survey addressed to teachers is proposed, based on four lines of action: 1. The way teachers manage the concept of interdisciplinarity. 2. The place that teachers give to interdisciplinarity in KO. 3. Assessment of interdisciplinary content that teachers incorporate into their postgraduate courses. 4. Set of teaching strategies and resources used by teachers to include interdisciplinarity in the teaching of KO. The study analyzed 22 responses. Preliminary results show that KO teachers recognize the influence of other disciplines in concepts, theories, methods, and applications, but no consensus has been reached regarding which disciplines and authors are the ones who build interdisciplinary bridges. Among other conclusions, the study strongly suggests that environmental and social tensions are reflected in subject representation, especially in the construction of friendly knowledge organization systems with interdisciplinary visions, and in the expressions through which information is sought.
- Keywords: interdisciplinarity; Knowledge Organization; Teaching; Postgraduate courses; Ibero-American universities

Full text from publisher »

O. Pestana. T. H. Bragato Barros, D. Haynes, G. Å. de Lima: Education and Training for Knowledge Organization: Introduction to this Special Issue. Knowledge Organization, 50(3), 2023: 157 – 159

(cc) BY Nomos eLibrary und Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft

Related Resources:

Birger Hjørland: Education in knowledge organization. (Version 1.0) In: Birger Hjørland; Claudio Gnoli (Eds.): ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization (IEKO). International Society for Knowledge Organization, 7 November 2022 Full text from publisher »