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Michèle Hudon
EBSI, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec
Proposal for an alternate structure to organize and
access resources in a virtual library in education
Abstract: Description of the stages of development of a faceted classification structure usable to
organize and access a virtual collection of specialized web resources in the field of education.
Comments on the results of a first application of the newly established structure.
Résumé : Présentation des étapes de développement d’une structure classificatoire à facettes
utilisable pour l’organisation et l’accès à une collection virtuelle de ressources du web
spécialisées dans le domaine de l’éducation. Commentaires sur les résultats d’une première
utilisation de la structure à facettes nouvellement établie.
1. Introduction
Specialists and researchers in education can find on the web considerable amounts of
education-related information. Web resources in education may be accessed via general
directories (La Toile du Québec, Yahoo!, etc.) or through special virtual libraries hosting
systematically organized collections of live links to selected resources (Hudon 2003).
In the framework of a three-year project funded by the Fond québécois pour la recherche
sur la société et la culture (FQRSC)1, we first analyzed ad hoc classification structures
developed for organizing and accessing virtual collections in the field of education. Our
sample consisted of six web-based libraries, all accessible in English only, and the
analysis considered three dimensions: structure, logic, and semantics. Results confirmed
that the hierarchical model based on contextual rather than hyperonymic relations
remained the most popular, and that the classification structures were not overly complex
and not very specific. Choice, arrangement and sequence of classes within the structures
appeared logic enough to make them easy to apprehend and navigate. But we observed
that the structures were not very flexible and did not appear to benefit much from the
technological environment in which they had developed and were now applied. Complete
description of the methodology and presentation of main results and interpretations have
been published in (Hudon, Mas and Gazo 2005) and (Hudon and Mas 2006).
Among the six structures that were examined, two appeared closer to an alternate model
for organizing objects, subjects, and classes; Education Index (www.educationindex.com)
and Education Virtual Library (www.csu.edu.au/education/library.html) made use of
explicit facets. However, these two structures were the least developed and the least
balanced of all, and it was not possible to extrapolate on the usefulness of facets to
structure and access virtual collections. It is this alternative faceted model that we have
explored in the second part of our research project.
1 Conception d’un schéma de classification pour l’organisation et le repérage des ressources du Web dans
le domaine de l’éducation (2003-2006). We wish to acknowledge the significant contribution made by the
four students who have worked on the project as research assistants. They are: Mesdames Pascale
Bellemare, Dominique Gazo, Johanne Lavoie and Sabine Mas.
2
In this paper, we first describe the development stages of a faceted classification structure
for a special virtual library of web resources in education. In the second part of the paper,
we comment on the results of a first application of the newly established structure to
describe and organize 408 web-based resources in our sample virtual library, and
announce the next steps in the validation process.
At this time, the faceted structure exists only in its French version. Excerpts from the
structure are shown in French only when appearing in tables or figures. Within the text,
examples are provided in French, with a rough translation in English suggested in
parentheses.
2. A faceted structure to organize and access resources in a virtual library in
education
The use of faceted structures to organize and access specialized digital resources is not
widespread, even if it is obvious that contemporary networks constitute an ideal
environment for implementing the analytico-synthetic principles and practices suggested
by S.R. Ranganathan in the 1930’s. The facet is a characteristic, an indicator, a criterion
that may be used to subdivide a class or a set of objects in homogeneous subsets. Age,
gender, or address, for example, are facets that can be used to create subsets in a group of
persons. The same facets can be used to identify more or less precisely each member of
the original group: X is a women, belonging to the 30-39 age group, residing in the
Montérégie administrative region of Québec, etc. A facet may be usable with any group
of objects or subjects (for example: agent, process, property, method), or apply only to
certain categories of concepts and objects or within a single discipline (for example:
educational level, or source of financing, in education).
When a choice has been made to work with a faceted structure rather than with a strictly
hierarchical one, classifying an information resource does not consist anymore in locating
its main subject on a pre-established thematic map; rather, it requires a complete analysis
of the subject using in turn all facets or perspectives from which it can be considered. The
subject can then be represented very precisely. Intellectually, the faceted classification
offers several benefits:
1. Starting with a much smaller number of distinct classes, it authorizes a much
more refined representation of many subjects than enumerative classifications
(such as the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) or the Library of Congress
Classification (LCC)) do;
2. It is more flexible and adapts easily to conceptual evolution and renewal; it is
always possible to modify isolates or values attached to a facet, or even to add a
facet, without affecting in major ways the global structure of the system;
3. When explicit facets are used to organize and access subjects and collections, it
becomes possible to optimize automated search strategies since a subject may
then be retrieved from each one of the facets that has been used to describe it.
Several knowledge organization specialists have shown a definite interest in facets when
discussing organization and access to web resources (Broughton 2002, Ellis and
Vasconcelos 2000, LaBarre 2006). Van der Walt (2004) and Zins and Guttmann (2000)
have designed faceted structures to describe and classify specific domains; we used these
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structures as examples in designing our own proposal for an alternative to a strictly
hierarchical structuring of virtual collections in education.
The proposed structure was developed in several stages, using a deductive approach
strongly dependent on literary warrant: 1. creation of a sample virtual collection of web
resources in education; 2. classification of each resource using a traditional classification
scheme (DDC), as well as the structure used within The Educator’s Reference Desk
(www.eduref.org); 3. indexing of each resource using a traditional thesaurus: EDUthès :
Thésaurus de l’éducation (http://www.cdc.qc.ca/eduthes.html), and design of a bank of
candidate descriptors and potential isolates; 4. identification of structural facets needed
for content analysis and representation; 5. design of the faceted structure.
2.1 Creating a special virtual collection of web resources in education
The identification of relevant facets in our chosen discipline, the development of a bank
of descriptors, and the planned testing of the proposed classification structure made it
necessary to establish a small virtual collection of web resources in education, which
would contain a wide variety of contents and types of documents. It was decided that this
sample virtual collection would contain French-language resources only.
Our virtual collection grew over a period of several weeks through exploration of the web
with its main search engines, and by targeted inspection of sites created and maintained
by Faculties of Education in Francophone universities or by government departments and
agencies, as well as national and international associations and organizations with ties to
education. Following links to related resources proposed by selected sites also proved
productive.
Twenty-five themes or formal criteria that had been suggested by a survey a existing
virtual libraries in education, by examining the detailed summary of the Encyclopaedia of
Educational Research, as well as by a literature review on information needs and
behaviour of researchers and professors of education served as departure points for
exploring the web. Our objective of building a collection of 400 distinct resources was
achieved at the price of long hours of wandering on networks, searching for document
types and for contents not yet represented in our sample. We were ultimately able to work
with a collection of 408 resources (or live links). Table 1 describes the content of this
collection.
Theme N resources Theme N resources
Legislation 68 Teaching 46
Research 44 Statistics 38
Theory and Theoreticians 36 System and Reform 26
Policy 21 Career 18
Equity and discrimination 13 Philosophy of Education 11
History of Education 9 Terminology 9
Publishing 9 Theses 8
Information management 7 General management 6
Associations 6 Economy of education 6
Psychology 6 Comparative education 5
Standards 4 Ethics 4
Unions and Labor issues 4 Legal aspects 3
Leadership 1 TOTAL 408
Table 1 Contents of the sample virtual collection
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Our sample collection was composed of a good variety of document types, from portals
to journal articles available in .pdf format, from catalogues and bibliographies to
institutional web sites, from reference works to sponsored expert reports. A brief
description of each resource was created at the time of selection: the description included
minimally a significant title, a precise URL, an indication of source and provenance, and
a statement as to availability of links to related resources (see Figure 1).
Digital collection development, itself a growing and active field of research, is of course
far from easy, if only because of the difficulty of determining what exactly is considered
to be a web document. At this stage of our project, we chose the most inclusive definition
of the web document (web page, web sites, series, etc.) and did not concern ourselves
with any potential value that could be assigned to these resources by an information
specialist, to discriminate, for example, between a personal page and an institutional one.
In the case of series (weekly, monthly, etc.), titles were included once only and the
corresponding URL led to a resource bearing a specific date. It did not appear necessary,
for the purpose of this project, to apply cataloging rules relating to title modifications,
even if this may have led to the discovery of additional resources.
2.2 Classification and indexing
Each one of the 408 web resources selected for our sample collection was classified using
the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and the hierarchical structure developed in The
Educator’s Reference Desk (ERD). The choice of DDC was justified by the significant
presence of this classification scheme in a wide variety of information environments
(including the world wide web) and by our own observation of the semantic relevance of
this structure for collections of resources in education (Hudon, Mas and Gazo 2005).
ERD is the special virtual library whose access structure was considered the most
efficient of all that were evaluated in the first part of our research project.
The main objective of the classification operation, at times very complex as one can
imagine, was the identification of structural facets (Maniez 1999) applicable to the field
of education; such process has been recommended by Vickery and the Classification
Research Group (CRG) (1960). Furthermore, classification with these systems would
later make possible a comparison of three quite different organizing and access
structures, as to their efficiency.
Each resource was also assigned a set of descriptors proposed in ÉDUthès : Thésaurus de
l’éducation. ÉDUthès, created and maintained in Québec, offers a list of close to 4 000
controlled terms describing major subject areas in the field.
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Figure 1 shows a descriptive record following selection, description, classification and
indexing.
Title L'équité des systèmes éducatifs européens: un ensemble
d'indicateurs
URL http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/socrates/observati
on/equality_fr.pdf
Theme Questions éthiques ?
Source Groupe européen de recherche sur l’équité des systèmes éducatifs /
Projet soutenu par la Commission européenne, Direction générale de
l’éducation et la culture
Document type Document textuel
Links Non
DDC 370.94 Education—Geographical treatment—Europe
379.26 Educational equalization (Equal educational opportunity)
ERD General Education–Comparative Education / Educational
Management–No Child Left Behind
ÉDUthès Éducation comparée / Système scolaire / Indicateur social /
Indicateur économique / Indicateur de rendement / Différences
sociales / Égalité en éducation
Abstract Rapport final explorant les divers facteurs de l'inégalité en éducation
en les traduisant en indicateurs (motivation, inégalité sociale,
différence culturelle …)
Figure 1. Example of a descriptive record
Once the tasks of classification and indexing had been completed, we had at our disposal
a reservoir of descriptors which could later be used as precise values, or isolates, in the
faceted structure under development.
2.3 Development of a faceted classification structure
We chose to create a faceted structure rather than a traditional, strictly hierarchical one,
because of the representational flexibility made possible by the use of facets. As our
structure was expanding, we kept in mind and defined our objectives in accordance with
desirable characteristics of a classification scheme used with digital resources: simplicity,
logic, flexibility, hospitality, authority and specificity (Molholt 1995).
2.3.1 Choosing facets
The information acquired during previous stages of our research project, as well as the set
of titles and descriptors that were already available allowed us to suggest that five generic
facets were needed to describe, structure and access a virtual collection of resources in
education. These facets are: AGENT (who?), ACTIVITY or process (what?), METHOD
or tool (how?), SPACE or context (where?) and TIME (when?). In order to describe and
access documents offering more general information, not linked directly to any of the
preceding questions, a supplementary facet, FOUNDATIONS, was added, as proposed in
the model described by Zins and Guttmann (2000). The document type facet was
excluded from the structure; we consider that this information is of a descriptive
cataloguing nature and believe that, if it became necessary, a straight list of document
formats could be offered to the information searcher wanting to use this criterion to
restrict and filter a set of retrieved resources.
The proposed classification structure was developed using, as often as it was possible to
do so, a principle of division by essential characteristic rather than the principle of
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contextual hierarchy which is applied to most contemporary classification structures. In
education, there exist two types of AGENTS: Persons/Individuals and Organizations;
subsets of persons may be created on the basis of gender, age, and role or function.
Teaching, an ACTIVITY, can be described from the perspective of target clientele
(<clientele>), of objectives (<goals and objectives>), of level (<educational level>), of
the subject being taught (<discipline/subject>), of the method used to do so (<method>).
It was obviously not always possible to respect the principle of division by essential
characteristic, and we were sometimes forced to resort instead to a more traditional
thematic division, even at the highest levels within the structure. This was the case for the
FOUNDATIONS facet (Table 2).
Éducation (Généralités)
Histoire de l’éducation
Philosophie de l’éducation
FONDEMENTS
Théorie de l’éducation
Table 2 First level of division in the FOUNDATIONS facet
To preserve its ease of access and user-friendliness, it was decided that the structure
would not develop beyond the fifth level of subdivision, that the total number of isolates
could not be larger than 400, and that the number of isolates at the deepest level of the
structure would be as balanced as possible. Everywhere, except for the top facets,
alphabetical order was preferred to systematic order of classes.
2.3.2 Naming classes and choosing isolates
Each distinct class of a faceted structure has a specific name and is referred to as
“isolate”. Names are normally those that are found most frequently in the literature of a
discipline and in its major reference sources. Our bank of potential isolates was
established on the basis of keywords and terms used in the titles and summaries of
resources in our virtual collection, of terms found in corresponding captions in the DDC,
of terms used in ERD where the first three levels of the hierarchy had been translated in
French by a member of our team, and finally of EDUthès descriptors. We must specify
that semantic control of terms appearing in our faceted structure is minimal; the chosen
term is the most current, the simplest in form, and the most accessible; grammatical
gender and number have been standardized, but equivalence with synonyms, homonyms
or homographs has not been documented. Control of the phenomenon of conceptual
equivalence could be achieved in an index, but could not be made explicit within the
structure itself without decreasing its ease of use and user-friendliness. Since the
classification structure should normally be used by researchers and specialists of the
discipline, we believe that the lack of complete semantic control (as would be found, for
example, in a traditional thesaurus) should not be a source of major problems.
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Table 3 expands the Teaching class of the ACTIVITY facet, and lists a series of isolates
appearing at the fourth level of the structure.
Enseignement aux adultes
Enseignement aux immigrants
selon la clientèle
Enseignement aux personnes ayant un handicap
Enseignement de l’administration
Enseignement des arts et lettres
Enseignement des langues
Enseignement des mathématiques
Enseignement des sciences appliquées
Enseignement des sc. de l’éducation
Enseignement des sc. de la nature
Enseignement des sc. de la vie
selon la discipline
Enseignement des sc. humaines et sociales
Alphabétisation
Éducation civique
Éducation sociale
Formation de base
Formation continue
Formation diplômante
Formation professionnelle
selon la finalité
Formation technique
Enseignement à distance
Enseignement correctif
Enseignement en équipe
Enseignement holistique
Enseignement magistral
selon la méthode
Enseignement par immersion
Enseignement préscolaire
Enseignement primaire
Enseignement secondaire
Enseignement
selon le niveau
Enseignement postsecondaire
Table 3. Expansion of the Teaching class in the ACTIVITY facet
One will note that the classes thus created, whose name often results from a process of
pre-coordinating concepts of different nature (as in Enseignement + Personnes ayant un
handicap [Teaching + Handicapped persons] or Enseignement + Sciences humaines et
sociales [Teaching + Humanities and Social sciences]), are not mutually exclusive.
Assignment of a resource to multiple classes must then be not only authorized but also
strongly recommended, so that numerous access paths to a relevant resource are created.
It should also be noted that the lists of isolates are far from exhaustive; in a faceted
structure, this is not a problem since the structure itself allows for new subjects or set of
subjects, expressed in the form of isolates, to be added without making it necessary to
review what has already been established and validated.
At the time of planning a first application of the newly developed structure to describe
and organize our virtual collection of 408 resources, the structure was composed of:
- 6 top level facets representing as many departure points for navigating toward
specific subjects;
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- 25 second-level classes, 16 of which are not an expression of a principle of
division and can be used to describe resources (for example: ACTIVITÉ
►Communication [ACTIVITY ►Communication]);
- 86 third-level classes, 70 of which are not an expression of a principle of
division and can be used to describe resources (for example: TEMPS ► temps socio-
culturel ►Année scolaire [TIME ►«socio-cultural time» ►School year]);
- 142 classes at the fourth-level, among which two are expressions of a principle
of division and cannot be used to describe resources (for example: MILIEU ►Milieu
institutionnel ►Établissement d’enseignement ►selon le niveau d’enseignement
[SPACE ►Institutional space ►Teaching institutions ►«by level»]);
- 62 classes at the fifth and deepest level of the structure, all usable to describe
resources (for example: AGENT ►Personnes ►selon le rôle ou la fonction
►Administrateur ►Registraire [AGENT ►«persons» ►«by role or function»
►Administrator ►Registrar]).
Two hundred and eighty-eight (288) isolates, judged of interest to researchers and
specialists of education, were available in the structure that was used to organize the
resources of the virtual sample collection.
2.4 Using the faceted structure
The developing faceted structure was used to describe and organize the 408 specialized
resources in our sample virtual collection in education. Although the lack of the most
appropriate technological interface did not allow for optimal exploitation of the structure,
it is possible for us to comment at this time on extension and conceptual coverage,
navigational logic, flexibility, extensibility and structural hospitality. Our perspective is
that of the classifier using the structure to describe and organize a collection; in a later
stage of this research, the structure will also be used by information searchers to access
the sample collection.
2.4.1 Extension and conceptual coverage
As would be the case in any indexing and retrieval language constructed a posteriori to
organize and access an actual collection, conceptual coverage in our faceted structure is
necessarily oriented and limited by the contents of the sample collection. We had
estimated that 400 isolates would be necessary to describe and organize a basic collection
destined to be used by education specialists; this number was not reached. The
characteristics of extensibility and structural hospitality of faceted structures should
permit, however, systematic expansion of the structure to parallel that of the collection,
and ultimately that of the field.
2.4.2 Navigational logic
To make it easier to navigate the structure, the number of top and lower level facets
allowing for its expansion was deliberately restricted. When the principle of division by
essential characteristic was not anymore applicable, generic hierarchy came into play to
permit the development of deeper structural levels (Table 4).
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AGENTS ►Personnes ►selon le rôle ou la fonction ►Personnel enseignant ►Maître de
conférence
ACTIVITÉ ►Enseignement/Formation ►selon le niveau ►Enseignement postsecondaire
►Enseignement universitaire
ACTIVITÉ ►Recherche ►selon la méthode ►Recherche qualitative
MILIEU ►Milieu institutionnel ►Établissement d’enseignement ►selon la source de
financement ►Établissement privé
MILIEU ►Milieu institutionnel ►Établissement d’enseignement ►selon le niveau
d’enseignement ►École secondaire
MOYEN ►pour l’enseignement et l’apprentissage ►Technologie éducative ►Technologie
multimédia
Table 4. Application of the principle of division by essential characteristic, supplemented by that
of generic hierarchy
To preserve user-friendliness, alphabetical order was applied at all levels of the structure
but the top one.
2.4.3 Flexibility
Flexibility may be assessed from two distinct perspectives; flexibility relates to contents,
and flexibility also relates to usage, recommended and actual.
Simplicity and ease of navigation were primary objectives in this exercise. To attain these
goals, redundancy in contents was deemed necessary. Such redundancy allows an isolate,
for example Normes [Standards], to appear in various places within the structure,
possibly even under different top level facets, within contexts that will provide the
represented concept with various, but always appropriate meanings (Table 5)
pour l’évaluation Normes
pour la gestion Normes
MOYEN
pour la recherche Normes
Table 5. Example of redundancy by reuse of an isolate in various contexts
It is in the expansion of the facet METHOD or tool that the largest number of cases of
redundancy by reuse of the same isolate in various contexts will be found.
Redundancy is also observed in class names, as in Étudiant ►Étudiant ayant des
difficultés d’apprentissage [Student ► Student with learning disabilities], or in
Enseignement ►selon le niveau ►Enseignement postsecondaire ►Enseignement
universitaire [Teaching ►«by level» ►Postsecondary teaching ►University teaching].
This second type of redundancy, which we will call lexical redundancy, allows for
recognition of the meaning given to an isolate, even when it is first seen outside of its
structural and navigational context (in an alphabetical index for example).
The flexibility of the faceted structure is also a factor of its use, not only for organizing
resources in homogeneous and relevant groupings, but also for describing each resource
present in a collection. The process of classifying using a faceted structure is very similar
to that of indexing the contents of a resource. Working with a faceted structure, the
classifier cannot simply assign a resource to the more or less conceptually complex class
to which its main subject belong, this class being identified on the document itself by
some symbol. Rather, the classifier must assign a resource to multiple conceptually
simple classes to reflect all facets of the subject. Table 6 provides examples of multiple
allocations of sample resources to various facets and classes within.
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Title Classification
AFIRSE : Association francophone internationale de
recherche scientifique en éducation
FONDEMENTS ►Théorie de l'éducation ►Apports disciplinaires
AGENT ►Organisme ►Association ►Association savante
ACTIVITÉ ►Recherche
ACTIVITÉ ►Communication
John Locke (1632-1704) Quelques pensées sur l'éducation FONDEMENTS ►Philosophie de l'éducation
FONDEMENTS ►Théorie de l'éducation
ACTIVITÉ ►Enseignement/Formation ►selon la finalité ►Éducation civique
MILIEU ►Milieu géopolitique ►Europe ►Angleterre
TEMPS ►Temps chronologique ►Avant le 19e siècle
Programme de formation de l'école québécoise : éducation
préscolaire, enseignement primaire et secondaire
AGENT ►Organismes ►Ministère / Organisme / Agence gouvernementaux ►Ministère de l'éducation
ACTIVITÉ ►Enseignement/Formation ►selon le niveau ►Enseignement primaire
ACTIVITÉ ►Enseignement/Formation ►selon le niveau ►Enseignement secondaire
MOYEN ►pour la gestion ►Programme
MILIEU ►Milieu géopolitique ►Amérique du Nord ►Canada ►Québec
Microsoft Education
AGENT ►Organismes ►Organisme non gouvernemental/commercial
MOYEN ►pour l’enseignement et l’apprentissage ►Technologie éducative ►Technologie informatique
MILIEU ►Milieu géopolitique ►Europe ►France
Système d'information sur la recherche universitaire
AGENT ►Personnes ►selon le rôle ou la fonction ►Chercheur
AGENT ►Personnes ►selon le rôle ou la fonction ►Personnel enseignant
MILIEU ►Milieu institutionnel ►Établissement d'enseignement ►selon le niveau ►Université
ACTIVITÉ ►Recherche
MOYEN ►pour la recherche ►Subvention de recherche
MOYEN ►pour la recherche ►Contrat de recherche
MILIEU ►Milieu géopolitique ►Amérique du Nord ►Canada ►Québec
En quoi les TIC changent-elles les pratiques d’ingénierie
pédagogique du professeur d’université?
FONDEMENTS ►Théorie de l'éducation ►Pédagogie
AGENT ►Personnes ►selon le rôle ou la fonction ►Personnel enseignant
ACTIVITÉ ►Enseignement/Formation ►selon le niveau ►Enseignement postsecondaire ►Enseignement
universitaire
MILIEU ►Milieu institutionnel ►Établissement d'enseignement ►selon le niveau ►Université
MOYEN ►pour l'enseignement et l'apprentissage ►Technologie éducative
MILIEU ►Milieu géopolitique ►Amérique du Nord ►Canada ►Québec
Tableau 6. Examples of application of the faceted structure
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These multiple allocations represent as many distinct ways to logically navigate toward
the set of relevant resources needed to fill a need or satisfy an interest. The process will
be even more efficient if the interface and search engine authorize simple combinations
of facets and values of the type: AGENT + ACTIVITY + SPACE + METHOD as in:
Personnel enseignant + Enseignement en équipe + École secondaire + Technologie
éducative [Teaching personnel + Team teaching + Secondary school + Educational
technology], or complex combinations of the same. In the latter case, several isolates
linked to the same facet are related to one another using suggested pre-defined formulas,
or formulas created by the information searcher when the need arises as in : {Directeur +
Directeur adjoint + Registraire} + {École secondaire + Établissement public} +
Communication [{Director + Assistant director + Registrar} + {Secondary school +
Public institution} + Communication]).
2.4.4 Extensibility and structural hospitality
The first application of the proposed faceted structure to describe and organize our
sample virtual collection has already led to the integration of specific isolates and of
facets allowing for a supplementary level of subdivision, as well as forced the
restructuring of some sections of the structure to improve its navigational logic. It is thus
possible at this time to confirm the extensibility and hospitality of the proposed structure.
By nature, a faceted structure can be extended at any and all of its levels. It is of course
always tempting to add large number of isolates at the lowest and deepest levels, but this
is not necessarily in the best interest of the information searcher who is then at risk of
being offered unsatisfactory retrieval sets due to the small number of relevant resources
they contain. The main objective of any classification structure remains the grouping of
resources linked through their thematic content, their genre, their format, etc., rather than
discovery of one or two relevant resources, already made possible by other search
methods and strategies, the keyword-based search for example.
The faceted structure is also characterized by its hospitality. The integration of new
isolates at the exact place in the structure where they are needed, and within the context
that will give them their full meaning, is always possible without modification to the
macrostructure itself. Integration of facets expressing a division on the basis of essential
characteristic (<according to …>, <by…>, <on the basis of…>) will necessarily bring
about the restructuring of sections of the structure, since a list of isolates, till then
presented in alphabetical order, will need to be systematically reorganized on the basis of
the new point of view. Numerous structural changes are expected during the initial
development phases, but when the structure is not complex and not very deep, the
frequency of such adjustments will diminish as the bases of the structure settle.
2.5 Next steps
Our work on an alternate structure usable to organize and access a collection of
specialized web resources in the field of education is now entering a phase of multiple
validations.
Even if we have, on occasions, solicited the expertise of education specialists in the
course of developing this proposal for a faceted classification structure, we have until
now relied mostly on the content of our virtual collection and on the structures proposed
by reference works to name, rank, and structure facets and concepts. A more scientific
process of validation is now required; this validation will be sought from researchers in
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education, primary target users of a virtual library of French resources in this field; a
large majority of education specialists surveyed at an early stage of this project have
confirmed their interest in such an information source.
Validation of the ease of navigation, user-friendliness, extensibility and flexibility of the
structure will be obtained by having two or more classifiers, who have not had until now
any ties with this project or with the project team, use the faceted structure to describe the
resources of our sample virtual library. A second application of the structure is already
under way.
The third and last validation process will only be launched when an appropriate
technological interface allowing for optimal use of the structure to identify and locate
relevant resources becomes available. This validation will be done within a controlled
experimental environment, by exploiting the structure to access and retrieve relevant
resources. Education and information specialists will be asked to complete more or less
complex search tasks; this will allow us to validate the proposed content, as well as
compare the performance and efficiency of the alternate structure with that of DDC and
of ERD.
3 Conclusion
This three-year research project has led us first to confirm that the organization of web
resources in virtual libraries has improved considerably over the past 15 years. Whether
universal or specialized in their coverage, the « new » classification structures are user-
friendly and truly accessible to information searchers, but they remain rather inflexible
and from a logical point of view, still leave much to be desired.
We now have the technology that should allow us to implement principles of analysis and
representation proposed in the first half of the XXth century by the Indian librarian
Ranganathan, and to develop and use classificatory structures that are flexible, hospitable
and better adapted to the electronic networked environment.
It is in this stream of thinking that we propose an alternative to the strictly hierarchical
organization of sets of specialized web resources, with a view to facilitating access and
retrieval. The development of a generic structure based on facets for organizing and
accessing web resources of interest to specialists and researchers in education has
allowed us to present the interest of this solution for the classifier. The faceted structure is
still developing, and various validation processes are, or will soon be in place. We hope
to be able to also confirm in the near future the interest of the solution for the web
searcher.
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