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Vocabulary Curation (VC)

Why do so many organisations use different terms for the same thing as well as the same term for different things?

Strategic and operational challenges abound with controlled vocabularies scattered across multiple spreadsheets, applications, and legacy systems. 

For instance, in an Emergency response scenario when Ambulance, Police, Fire Service and Road and Traffic authorities use different standards, definitions, languages and systems - this can translate to chaos on the ground and risk lives and property.

Organisational silos create separate and disconnected systems based on their crucial language and adopted meanings e.g., customer, operational, financial, technology. Vocabularies readily become out of sync and out of date in multiple data silos and disconnected repositories.

Resolving complexity with semantic enrichment

SURROUND’s Vocabulary Curation uses global standards to improve precision and consistency in language use by managing the meaning of words and phrases - across the organisation, and across time, for both people and machines. 

It comprises the management, selection, organisation, and presentation of online content, including both using general vocabularies as well as specialised domain / expert knowledge. VC is an intelligent system for vocabulary and taxonomy classification to explain the life cycle of meaning or words relevant to their use in a particular context. This capability enables more precise and accurate use of language.

SURROUND’s VC creates a Knowledge Graph of an enterprise’s vocabularies and associated resources. VC is a flexible, web-based system which supports business stakeholders who need to collaborate on defining, linking, and using enterprise vocabularies (such as taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies) required to integrate content sources, comply with regulations, and enhance navigation and search.

VC makes it possible to turn silos of unstructured data into smart data: that is, a linked Knowledge Graph ready to use in business decisions. VC enables:

  • faceted and context-sensitive search
  • automated linking to related and topic pages
  • life cycle governance of managed knowledge assets
  • content-centric workflows
  • adherence to the W3C SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organisation System) and other standards

Vocabulary Curation improves:

  • The accuracy of linking knowledge, by increasing effective communication, and decreasing mis-communication and ambiguity
  • The accuracy of simple and advanced searches (faceted search)
  • The timeliness of the navigation and delivery of information to people and machines across semi-automated and automated processes
  • The ability to further improve accuracy of vocabulary usage and meaning over time 
  • The ability to create resilient and flexible semi-automated and automated processes within the enterprise by harmonising language and vocabulary definitions
  • The consequent ability to extend resilient and flexible semi-automated and automated processes beyond the enterprise by harmonising language and vocabulary definitions
  • The quality of outcomes provided by the semi-automated and automated processes, measured by performance indicators
  • Demonstrated ROI of implementing semi-automated and automated processes 
  • The measurable quality of the organisation’s fabric of connected knowledge 
  • The overall end-to-end accuracy of decision-making, task execution, and business and technical outcomes