HILT

Full Title

High-Level Thesaurus Phase IV: Transition to Service Testbed and Future Requirements Study

Acronym

HILT

Websites

HILT website
HILT III

Duration

April 2007 – February 2009; additional funding to test embedding of HILT extended the project to May 2009

Summary

HILT aimed to ensure that FE and HE users of the JISC Information Environment could find appropriate learning, research and information resources by subject search and browse in a distributed services environment where most service providers used different subject schemes to describe their resources, details of which were largely unknown to most users. The assumption was that services offering users facilities to cross-search and browse distributed services would use HILT services in a fashion transparent to their users. This would be done via machine to machine (M2M) or web services protocols such as SOAP or SRW, through routines embedded in service user interfaces. On request, HILT would serve up data on individual subject schemes (broader terms, narrower terms, hierarchy information, preferred and non-preferred terms, and so on) and interoperability data (usually intellectual or automated mappings between schemes, but the architecture alloeds for the use of other methods). These data could be used by the information services to aid users in a variety of ways – for example, improving recall by enriching the set of terms known to a user by providing synonyms and related terms such as improving precision by providing the best terms for a subject search in a remote service that uses LCSH or UNESCO.

HILT Phase III built various pilot facilities allowing M2M interaction and also mapped out a design for an entry-level M2M service. HILT Phase IV was a transition to service phase that allowed this initial entry-level service to be built, tested for user requirements and retrieval effectiveness, refined in line with findings, and extended to permit the use of a range of distributed terminology services for interoperability. It would also involve a survey of the level of need and interest amongst JISC services in respect of an operational service and, if appropriate, a scoping of the cost and specification of a future operational phase of the service. A parallel programme of research into selected topics to help inform both the cost and requirements of an initial entry-level operational service and any future extension.

EDINA provided programming support for development of the SRW client; advice on performance and interface issues; hosting the SRW server; and tested developments using a Go-Geo! client.

Project Deliverables

• An entry-level service capable of meeting the high-level mapping needs of two JISC stand-alone information services or aggregator facilities


• A freely available package consisting of an SRW client from the internet, instructions for making it interact with HILT and illustrative user interface routines for using the client to exploit HILT facilities, terminologies, and terminology mappings


• A dissemination programme to inform JISC service providers of the potential value of an operational service to their services and their users


• The results of a survey of JISC services aimed at gauging the level of interest and need for an operational JISC interoperability and terminologies delivery service


• If appropriate, an estimate of the costs of setting up and maintaining an operational service and funding ongoing research and development needs beyond an entry-level service

Project Outcomes

• Toolkit download and documentation (HILT project home page)
• HILT Phase IV and Embedding Project Demonstrators (HILT project website)

EDINA Contacts

Christine Rees

Partnerships

Centre for Digital Library Research, Strathclyde University

Funders

JISC