SIST-TS ISO/TS 24634:2025
(Main)Management of terminology resources — TermBase eXchange (TBX)-compliant representation of concept relations and subject fields
Management of terminology resources — TermBase eXchange (TBX)-compliant representation of concept relations and subject fields
This document specifies requirements and recommendations for representing subject fields and concept relations in TBX-compliant terminological document instances. Examples in this document utilize the data category as attribute (DCA) style of TBX markup.
Gestion des ressources terminologiques — Représentation des relations conceptuelles et des domaines conforme à TermBase eXchange (TBX)
Upravljanje terminoloških virov - Predstavitev konceptualnih razmerij in predmetnih področij, skladno s TermBase eXchange (TBX)
Ta dokument določa zahteve in priporočila za predstavitev predmetnih področij ter konceptualnih razmerij v primerkih terminoloških dokumentov, skladnih s TBX. Primeri v tem dokumentu uporabljajo slog podatkovne kategorije kot atributa (DCA) za označevanje TBX.
General Information
Relations
Standards Content (Sample)
SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-junij-2025
Nadomešča:
SIST-TS ISO/TS 24634:2022
Upravljanje terminoloških virov - Predstavitev konceptualnih razmerij in
predmetnih področij, skladno s TermBase eXchange (TBX)
Management of terminology resources — TermBase eXchange (TBX)-compliant
representation of concept relations and subject fields
Gestion des ressources terminologiques — Représentation des relations conceptuelles
et des domaines conforme à TermBase eXchange (TBX)
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: ISO/TS 24634:2024
ICS:
01.020 Terminologija (načela in Terminology (principles and
koordinacija) coordination)
35.240.30 Uporabniške rešitve IT v IT applications in information,
informatiki, dokumentiranju in documentation and
založništvu publishing
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.
Technical
Specification
ISO/TS 24634
Second edition
Management of terminology
2024-10
resources — TermBase eXchange
(TBX)-compliant representation of
concept relations and subject fields
Gestion des ressources terminologiques — Représentation des
relations conceptuelles et des domaines conforme à TermBase
eXchange (TBX)
Reference number
© ISO 2024
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on
the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below
or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Subject fields . 3
4.1 General .3
4.2 Specifying the name of the subject-field classification .3
4.3 Defining the scope of subject-field values .4
4.4 Hierarchy of subject fields .5
4.5 Representing subject-field values in concept entries .6
4.5.1 General .6
4.5.2 Referencing the backmatter .7
4.5.3 Expressing the position of the subject-field value in each concept entry .7
4.6 Using a publicly available subject-field classification .7
5 Representing subject-field classifications in the backmatter . 8
6 Concept relations . 9
6.1 Typology of concept relations .9
6.2 Implementation of concept relations .10
6.2.1 General .10
6.2.2 TBX markup for concept relations within the concept entry .10
6.2.3 TBX markup for concept relations outside the concept entry .10
Annex A (informative) Typology of associative relations .12
Annex B (informative) Markup samples for concept relations in the element . 14
Annex C (informative) Markup samples of concept relations in the backmatter .16
Bibliography .18
iii
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through
ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee
has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations,
governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely
with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described
in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types
of ISO document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the
ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
ISO draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a)
patent(s). ISO takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent
rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, ISO had not received notice of (a)
patent(s) which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that
this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at
www.iso.org/patents. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions
related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 37, Language and terminology, Subcommittee
SC 3, Management of terminology resources.
This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (ISO/TS 24634:2021), which has been technically
revised.
The main changes are as follows:
— addition of TBX markup for concept relations outside the concept entry in 6.2.3;
— typology of associative relations in Table A.1 is adopted from ISO 704:2022, 5.5.5;
— addition of markup samples of concept relations in the backmatter in Annex C.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.
iv
Introduction
This document describes best practices for specifying subject fields and concept relations in termbases.
It also demonstrates how to represent subject fields and concept relations in terminological document
instances in a way that is compliant with ISO 30042.
Concept relations for specific TBX dialects are specified in the form of dedicated TBX modules. Subject fields
can be declared in the TBX backmatter or implemented through an extensible markup language (XML)
namespace. This document is intended to maximize interoperability of these types of information.
Throughout this document, reference is made to data categories (DCs). To maximize interoperability,
it is essential that termbases use the same DCs, as described in this document, for the same purposes.
[3]
DatCatInfo is a publicly available electronic repository of DC specifications. DCs used in the examples in
[3]
this document are taken from DatCatInfo .
This document complements ISO 30042.
v
Technical Specification ISO/TS 24634:2024(en)
Management of terminology resources — TermBase eXchange
(TBX)-compliant representation of concept relations and
subject fields
1 Scope
This document specifies requirements and recommendations for representing subject fields and concept
relations in TBX-compliant terminological document instances. Examples in this document utilize the data
category as attribute (DCA) style of TBX markup.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content constitutes
requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references,
the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 1087, Terminology work and terminology science — Vocabulary
ISO 12620-1, Management of terminology resources — Data categories — Part 1: Specifications
ISO 12620-2, Management of terminology resources — Data categories — Part 2: Repositories
ISO 30042, Management of terminology resources — TermBase eXchange (TBX)
W3C, RDF Resource Description Framework, W3C Recommendation 25 February 2014. Available at: https://
www .w3 .org/ RDF/
W3C, SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference, W3C Recommendation 18 August 2009.
Available at: https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ skos -reference/
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO 1087, ISO 12620-1, ISO 12620-2,
ISO 30042 and the following apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at https:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
concept relation
relation between concepts
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.11]
3.2
hierarchical relation
hierarchical concept relation
generic relation (3.3) or partitive relation (3.4)
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.12]
3.3
generic relation
generic concept relation
genus-species relation
concept relation (3.1) between a generic concept and a specific concept where the intension of the specific
concept includes the intension of the generic concept plus at least one additional delimiting characteristic
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.13, modified — Example and notes to entry deleted.]
3.4
partitive relation
partitive concept relation
part-whole relation
part-of relation
concept relation (3.1) between a comprehensive concept and a partitive concept
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.14, modified — Example deleted.]
3.5
associative relation
associative concept relation
pragmatic relation
non-hierarchical concept relation (3.1)
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.23, modified — Example deleted.]
3.6
concept entry
terminological entry
part of a terminological data collection (3.12) which contains the terminological data related to one concept
[SOURCE: ISO 30042:2019, 3.5, modified — Admitted term “entry” deleted.]
3.7
data category
DC
class of data items that are closely related from a formal or semantic point of view
EXAMPLE /part of speech/, /subject field/, /definition/.
Note 1 to entry: A data category can be viewed as a generalization of the notion of a field in a database.
Note 2 to entry: In running text, such as in this document, data categories are enclosed in forward slashes (e.g. /part
of speech/).
[SOURCE: ISO 30042:2019, 3.8, modified —Abbreviated term “DC” added.]
3.8
picklist
list of permissible values of a closed data category (3.7)
3.9
subject field
domain
field of special knowledge
[SOURCE: ISO 10241-1:2011, 3.3.1, modified — “domain” replaced with “subject field” as the preferred term.
Notes to entry deleted.]
3.10
subject-field classification
logical structure of the subject fields (3.9) and subfields dealt with in a terminological data collection (3.12)
3.11
termbase
terminology database
database comprising a terminological data collection (3.12)
[SOURCE: ISO 30042:2019, 3.28]
3.12
terminological data collection
resource consisting of concept entries (3.6) with associated metadata and documentary information
EXAMPLE A TBX document instance.
[SOURCE: ISO 30042:2019, 3.29, modified — Abbreviated term “TDC” and example “ISO 1087” deleted.]
4 Subject fields
4.1 General
Termbases, particularly large ones, should be organized according to subject fields. In this case, there may
be a /subject field/ data category at the concept level (this is implemented as a element).
A picklist shall be used as the content model for subject fields. If the organization has a taxonomy that reflects
its field of activity, the subject-field classification should reflect that taxonomy. Subject-field classifications
can be declared in the backmatter of a TBX document instance, or through an XML namespace. In this
document, the backmatter approach is described. The XML namespace approach requires a data category as
tag (DCT) style of TBX markup and can be modelled in parallel to the backmatter method.
A given TBX document instance can use more than one subject-field classification.
4.2 Specifying the name of the subject-field classification
The name of the subject-field classification used in a TBX document instance shall be declared in the TBX header.
EXAMPLE 1
Termbase from ABC company
ABC Subject-Field Classification
Additional information about the subject field shall be provided in the backmatter, as described in Clause 5.
For this purpose, the id attribute acts as a unique pointer to the relevant section in the backmatter.
When more than one subject-field classification is used in a TBX document instance, the additional name
declaration shall be provided.
EXAMPLE 2
Termbase from ABC company
ABC Subject-Field Classification
DEF Subject-Field Classification
If the additional subject-field classification is a result of the merging of two termbases, the name of the
termbase can also be provided.
EXAMPLE 3
Termbase from ABC company
ABC Subject-Field Classification
Termbase from DEF company
DEF Subject-Field Classification
4.3 Defining the scope of subject-field values
Terminologists and other users of termbases often find it difficult to determine which subject field a concept
should be assigned to. This is largely because historically the scope and meaning of subject fields themselves
have not been defined for the users. Therefore, a clear description of the scope of each subject field should be
available to users of the termbase. In this document, a method is described for recording this information in
the backmatter of a TBX document instance.
[4] [5]
Some termbases use a publicly available subject-field classification, such as EuroVoc or Lenoch .
These sources provide descriptions of the scope and meaning of their subject fields, and therefore, it is
recommended to avoid duplicating this information in a termbase.
Termbases that adopt a unique subject-field classification should include information about the scope of the
subject-field values in the backmatter of the TBX document instance.
In all cases, the subject-field description should be available or known to termbase users when they are
assigning a subject-field value to a concept entry. Figure 1 shows an example of a subject-field description
from an existing termbase.
Figure 1 — Sample description of the “aquaculture” subject field
4.4 Hierarchy of subject fields
Frequently it is not sufficient to have a simple list of subject-field values without any parent/child
relationships (referred to as a “flat” list). For subsetting and search purposes, large termbases can benefit
from a multi-level hierarchy of subject fields. Figure 2 shows a multi-level subject-field classification, with
“Energy” having two subordinate levels, and “Environment and natural resources” having one subordinate
level. Figure 3 shows another example from the field of mining.
NOTE Sample from Reference [6].
Figure 2 — Multi-level subject-field classification
NOTE Sample from Reference [7].
Figure 3 — Multi-level subject-field classification
4.5 Representing subject-field values in concept entries
4.5.1 General
In a TBX document instance, the value of a subject field in a specific concept entry is indicated as the content
of a element with the "subjectField" type attribute value.
EXAMPLE 1
Nuclear power
If the TBX document instance features more than one subject-field classification, a element
can be used to indicate the relevant subject-field classification.
EXAMPLE 2
Nuclear power
ABC-Class
However, in cases where the subject-field classification comprises more than one level, information about
the position of the subject-field value within the overall hierarchy is also required.
The position of a subject field in a multi-level hierarchy, such as the one represented by “Energy > Power > Nuclear
power” from Figure 2, can be represented in concept entries in the following two ways:
a) by referencing its position in the backmatter, where the full subject-field classification is described; or
b) by indicating its position in the concept entry itself.
4.5.2 Referencing the backmatter
The full hierarchy of the entire subject-field classification can be defined once in the backmatter of a TBX
document instance by using unique identifiers to link the levels (see Clause 5). A concept entry can fulfil
the subject field requirement simply by specifying a single value (e.g. “Nuclear power”). The position of this
value in the hierarchy can be determined by consulting the backmatter (the content of the element).
This approach enables the definition of the entire hierarchy with a single inclusion in the TBX-document
instance. However, the position of “Nuclear power” in the hierarchy is not visible in the TBX entry in the TBX
document instance.
EXAMPLE
Nuclear power
where ABC-Class identifies the subject-field classification in the backmatter, and SF1-1-2 points to the ID of
the relevant value in that classification.
4.5.3 Expressing the position of the subject-field value in each concept entry
The position of each value in the hierarchy can be expressed each time the value occurs in a concept entry
by specifying the relevant section of the hierarchy. For instance, for the value “Nuclear power” shown in
Figure 2, “Energy|Power|Nuclear power” shall be specified in the concept entry. The advantage of this
method is that readers of the TBX document instance can see the hierarchical position of this subject-field
value in the
...
Technical
Specification
ISO/TS 24634
Second edition
Management of terminology
2024-10
resources — TermBase eXchange
(TBX)-compliant representation of
concept relations and subject fields
Gestion des ressources terminologiques — Représentation des
relations conceptuelles et des domaines conforme à TermBase
eXchange (TBX)
Reference number
© ISO 2024
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on
the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below
or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: +41 22 749 01 11
Email: copyright@iso.org
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
ii
Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Subject fields . 3
4.1 General .3
4.2 Specifying the name of the subject-field classification .3
4.3 Defining the scope of subject-field values .4
4.4 Hierarchy of subject fields .5
4.5 Representing subject-field values in concept entries .6
4.5.1 General .6
4.5.2 Referencing the backmatter .7
4.5.3 Expressing the position of the subject-field value in each concept entry .7
4.6 Using a publicly available subject-field classification .7
5 Representing subject-field classifications in the backmatter . 8
6 Concept relations . 9
6.1 Typology of concept relations .9
6.2 Implementation of concept relations .10
6.2.1 General .10
6.2.2 TBX markup for concept relations within the concept entry .10
6.2.3 TBX markup for concept relations outside the concept entry .10
Annex A (informative) Typology of associative relations .12
Annex B (informative) Markup samples for concept relations in the element . 14
Annex C (informative) Markup samples of concept relations in the backmatter .16
Bibliography .18
iii
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards
bodies (ISO member bodies). The work of preparing International Standards is normally carried out through
ISO technical committees. Each member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee
has been established has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations,
governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work. ISO collaborates closely
with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) on all matters of electrotechnical standardization.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described
in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types
of ISO document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the
ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
ISO draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a)
patent(s). ISO takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent
rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, ISO had not received notice of (a)
patent(s) which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that
this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at
www.iso.org/patents. ISO shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions
related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 37, Language and terminology, Subcommittee
SC 3, Management of terminology resources.
This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (ISO/TS 24634:2021), which has been technically
revised.
The main changes are as follows:
— addition of TBX markup for concept relations outside the concept entry in 6.2.3;
— typology of associative relations in Table A.1 is adopted from ISO 704:2022, 5.5.5;
— addition of markup samples of concept relations in the backmatter in Annex C.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.
iv
Introduction
This document describes best practices for specifying subject fields and concept relations in termbases.
It also demonstrates how to represent subject fields and concept relations in terminological document
instances in a way that is compliant with ISO 30042.
Concept relations for specific TBX dialects are specified in the form of dedicated TBX modules. Subject fields
can be declared in the TBX backmatter or implemented through an extensible markup language (XML)
namespace. This document is intended to maximize interoperability of these types of information.
Throughout this document, reference is made to data categories (DCs). To maximize interoperability,
it is essential that termbases use the same DCs, as described in this document, for the same purposes.
[3]
DatCatInfo is a publicly available electronic repository of DC specifications. DCs used in the examples in
[3]
this document are taken from DatCatInfo .
This document complements ISO 30042.
v
Technical Specification ISO/TS 24634:2024(en)
Management of terminology resources — TermBase eXchange
(TBX)-compliant representation of concept relations and
subject fields
1 Scope
This document specifies requirements and recommendations for representing subject fields and concept
relations in TBX-compliant terminological document instances. Examples in this document utilize the data
category as attribute (DCA) style of TBX markup.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content constitutes
requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references,
the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO 1087, Terminology work and terminology science — Vocabulary
ISO 12620-1, Management of terminology resources — Data categories — Part 1: Specifications
ISO 12620-2, Management of terminology resources — Data categories — Part 2: Repositories
ISO 30042, Management of terminology resources — TermBase eXchange (TBX)
W3C, RDF Resource Description Framework, W3C Recommendation 25 February 2014. Available at: https://
www .w3 .org/ RDF/
W3C, SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference, W3C Recommendation 18 August 2009.
Available at: https:// www .w3 .org/ TR/ skos -reference/
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO 1087, ISO 12620-1, ISO 12620-2,
ISO 30042 and the following apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https:// www .iso .org/ obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at https:// www .electropedia .org/
3.1
concept relation
relation between concepts
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.11]
3.2
hierarchical relation
hierarchical concept relation
generic relation (3.3) or partitive relation (3.4)
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.12]
3.3
generic relation
generic concept relation
genus-species relation
concept relation (3.1) between a generic concept and a specific concept where the intension of the specific
concept includes the intension of the generic concept plus at least one additional delimiting characteristic
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.13, modified — Example and notes to entry deleted.]
3.4
partitive relation
partitive concept relation
part-whole relation
part-of relation
concept relation (3.1) between a comprehensive concept and a partitive concept
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.14, modified — Example deleted.]
3.5
associative relation
associative concept relation
pragmatic relation
non-hierarchical concept relation (3.1)
[SOURCE: ISO 1087:2019, 3.2.23, modified — Example deleted.]
3.6
concept entry
terminological entry
part of a terminological data collection (3.12) which contains the terminological data related to one concept
[SOURCE: ISO 30042:2019, 3.5, modified — Admitted term “entry” deleted.]
3.7
data category
DC
class of data items that are closely related from a formal or semantic point of view
EXAMPLE /part of speech/, /subject field/, /definition/.
Note 1 to entry: A data category can be viewed as a generalization of the notion of a field in a database.
Note 2 to entry: In running text, such as in this document, data categories are enclosed in forward slashes (e.g. /part
of speech/).
[SOURCE: ISO 30042:2019, 3.8, modified —Abbreviated term “DC” added.]
3.8
picklist
list of permissible values of a closed data category (3.7)
3.9
subject field
domain
field of special knowledge
[SOURCE: ISO 10241-1:2011, 3.3.1, modified — “domain” replaced with “subject field” as the preferred term.
Notes to entry deleted.]
3.10
subject-field classification
logical structure of the subject fields (3.9) and subfields dealt with in a terminological data collection (3.12)
3.11
termbase
terminology database
database comprising a terminological data collection (3.12)
[SOURCE: ISO 30042:2019, 3.28]
3.12
terminological data collection
resource consisting of concept entries (3.6) with associated metadata and documentary information
EXAMPLE A TBX document instance.
[SOURCE: ISO 30042:2019, 3.29, modified — Abbreviated term “TDC” and example “ISO 1087” deleted.]
4 Subject fields
4.1 General
Termbases, particularly large ones, should be organized according to subject fields. In this case, there may
be a /subject field/ data category at the concept level (this is implemented as a element).
A picklist shall be used as the content model for subject fields. If the organization has a taxonomy that reflects
its field of activity, the subject-field classification should reflect that taxonomy. Subject-field classifications
can be declared in the backmatter of a TBX document instance, or through an XML namespace. In this
document, the backmatter approach is described. The XML namespace approach requires a data category as
tag (DCT) style of TBX markup and can be modelled in parallel to the backmatter method.
A given TBX document instance can use more than one subject-field classification.
4.2 Specifying the name of the subject-field classification
The name of the subject-field classification used in a TBX document instance shall be declared in the TBX header.
EXAMPLE 1
Termbase from ABC company
ABC Subject-Field Classification
Additional information about the subject field shall be provided in the backmatter, as described in Clause 5.
For this purpose, the id attribute acts as a unique pointer to the relevant section in the backmatter.
When more than one subject-field classification is used in a TBX document instance, the additional name
declaration shall be provided.
EXAMPLE 2
Termbase from ABC company
ABC Subject-Field Classification
DEF Subject-Field Classification
If the additional subject-field classification is a result of the merging of two termbases, the name of the
termbase can also be provided.
EXAMPLE 3
Termbase from ABC company
ABC Subject-Field Classification
Termbase from DEF company
DEF Subject-Field Classification
4.3 Defining the scope of subject-field values
Terminologists and other users of termbases often find it difficult to determine which subject field a concept
should be assigned to. This is largely because historically the scope and meaning of subject fields themselves
have not been defined for the users. Therefore, a clear description of the scope of each subject field should be
available to users of the termbase. In this document, a method is described for recording this information in
the backmatter of a TBX document instance.
[4] [5]
Some termbases use a publicly available subject-field classification, such as EuroVoc or Lenoch .
These sources provide descriptions of the scope and meaning of their subject fields, and therefore, it is
recommended to avoid duplicating this information in a termbase.
Termbases that adopt a unique subject-field classification should include information about the scope of the
subject-field values in the backmatter of the TBX document instance.
In all cases, the subject-field description should be available or known to termbase users when they are
assigning a subject-field value to a concept entry. Figure 1 shows an example of a subject-field description
from an existing termbase.
Figure 1 — Sample description of the “aquaculture” subject field
4.4 Hierarchy of subject fields
Frequently it is not sufficient to have a simple list of subject-field values without any parent/child
relationships (referred to as a “flat” list). For subsetting and search purposes, large termbases can benefit
from a multi-level hierarchy of subject fields. Figure 2 shows a multi-level subject-field classification, with
“Energy” having two subordinate levels, and “Environment and natural resources” having one subordinate
level. Figure 3 shows another example from the field of mining.
NOTE Sample from Reference [6].
Figure 2 — Multi-level subject-field classification
NOTE Sample from Reference [7].
Figure 3 — Multi-level subject-field classification
4.5 Representing subject-field values in concept entries
4.5.1 General
In a TBX document instance, the value of a subject field in a specific concept entry is indicated as the content
of a element with the "subjectField" type attribute value.
EXAMPLE 1
Nuclear power
If the TBX document instance features more than one subject-field classification, a element
can be used to indicate the relevant subject-field classification.
EXAMPLE 2
Nuclear power
ABC-Class
However, in cases where the subject-field classification comprises more than one level, information about
the position of the subject-field value within the overall hierarchy is also required.
The position of a subject field in a multi-level hierarchy, such as the one represented by “Energy > Power > Nuclear
power” from Figure 2, can be represented in concept entries in the following two ways:
a) by referencing its position in the backmatter, where the full subject-field classification is described; or
b) by indicating its position in the concept entry itself.
4.5.2 Referencing the backmatter
The full hierarchy of the entire subject-field classification can be defined once in the backmatter of a TBX
document instance by using unique identifiers to link the levels (see Clause 5). A concept entry can fulfil
the subject field requirement simply by specifying a single value (e.g. “Nuclear power”). The position of this
value in the hierarchy can be determined by consulting the backmatter (the content of the element).
This approach enables the definition of the entire hierarchy with a single inclusion in the TBX-document
instance. However, the position of “Nuclear power” in the hierarchy is not visible in the TBX entry in the TBX
document instance.
EXAMPLE
Nuclear power
where ABC-Class identifies the subject-field classification in the backmatter, and SF1-1-2 points to the ID of
the relevant value in that classification.
4.5.3 Expressing the position of the subject-field value in each concept entry
The position of each value in the hierarchy can be expressed each time the value occurs in a concept entry
by specifying the relevant section of the hierarchy. For instance, for the value “Nuclear power” shown in
Figure 2, “Energy|Power|Nuclear power” shall be specified in the concept entry. The advantage of this
method is that readers of the TBX document instance can see the hierarchical position of this subject-field
value in the concept entry itself. The disadvantage is data redundancy, since this information is repeated in
all entries that contain that value.
The TBX markup shown in the following example shall be used, including the pipe character (|) to separate
the subject-field values, and adopting the order of highest to lowest in the hierarchy:
EXAMPLE
Energy|Power|Nuclear power
4.6 Using a publicly available subject-field classification
[4] [5]
When a publicly available subject-field classification is adopted, such as EuroVoc or Lenoch , the name of
the subject-field classification and a unique identifier shall be declare
...
Questions, Comments and Discussion
Ask us and Technical Secretary will try to provide an answer. You can facilitate discussion about the standard in here.
Loading comments...