This Toronto Star article on the spring stench of Toronto came one database away from referencing some of my work here at the City of Toronto. Curious to see if the City experienced a sudden upsurge in calls related to the mystery stink, a reporter called 311 management. Neil Evans, the 311 director, reportedly typed the keywords “manure. smell. odour.” into the database of public calls to 311. So close! I worked on the development and implementation of a subject controlled vocabulary to describe content in 311’s knowledge base, which contains information about almost anything the public might want to know.
The subject controlled vocabulary, or subject thesaurus, brings together technical language that staff may use and terms commonly used by the public. Regardless of which term you search on, you’ll get the same result. So, if Neil was looking for possible sources of the smell, he could search the knowledge base by typing in “smell” or “sewer gas” (both synonyms) or “odour” (a preferred term). Because these terms are linked together, he could search on any one and find the same information.
(the gritty details: the research analysts responsible for tagging content search on either synonyms or the preferred term. All terms are then tagged as keywords in the metadata of each question and answer. The full text of the question and answer as well as the keywords are then searchable by customer service representatives answering calls from the public.)
The subject controlled vocabulary, or subject thesaurus, brings together technical language that staff may use and terms commonly used by the public. Regardless of which term you search on, you’ll get the same result. So, if Neil was looking for possible sources of the smell, he could search the knowledge base by typing in “smell” or “sewer gas” (both synonyms) or “odour” (a preferred term). Because these terms are linked together, he could search on any one and find the same information.
(the gritty details: the research analysts responsible for tagging content search on either synonyms or the preferred term. All terms are then tagged as keywords in the metadata of each question and answer. The full text of the question and answer as well as the keywords are then searchable by customer service representatives answering calls from the public.)
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