Proposal for a mixed model of evaluation for knowledge organization systems: application to the Complutense Digital Thesaurus

Abstract

The Complutense Digital Thesaurus, used by the Library of the Complutense University of Madrid, is due to its wide use and practical, professional, and historical relevance, a model of a knowledge organization system in libraries. This study continues with the evaluation of the Thesaurus using the ISO 25964-1:2011 standard and uses a mixed model in which we propose a template of indicators based on the standard that gives a score with compliance of the system with the standard, complemented with a survey administered to the library user staff of the Thesaurus to assess their degree of satisfaction with the tool, detect possibilities of improvement, and be able to compare their responses with the results of the previous evaluation. This evaluation model can be used by other institutions to assess and improve their thesauri. After analyzing the results, we present a series of recommendations aimed at improving the level of conformity of the Complutense Digital Thesaurus with the standard, which are susceptible to being applied to similar knowledge organization systems, and that will result in a general improvement in the quality of the system.