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Building Trees
Subject Trees
Here are some tips for building subject trees:
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Process Tips
Develop captions alongside subject names. Captions are brief summaries of a subject under 140 characters. This helps you justify a subject's place in the tree. You can reuse them when you move into Mandala.
Refer to experts and existing literature to improve your tree. You also don't always need to start from scratch. Ontologies are ongoing fields of research, so there may be an existing ontology that fits your needs. You can talk to us about how you can reuse these existing ontologies in Places at mandala@virginia.edu.
Tree Structure Tips
- Make sure your terms can stand alone. While context within the tree enhances subject terms, there are some places within Mandala where terms won't be shown within the tree. Avoiding vague terms like "yes" or "no" make your terms easier to find and use.
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- Consider both specific terms (Andean sheep farmers) and general terms (wool). Remember, your terms can really enhance the Mandala project as a whole, and other people may eventually want to use your broader terms.
Make sure the group of subject in a single level is cohesive. This means every subject in that group has a similar "type" and "scope." Don't put very specific subjects alongside general subjects.
Make sure there's a clear flow for each path in the tree. There should be a logical progression from the topmost point of the tree to each individual subject at the bottom.
Make sure the flow goes from broadest to narrowest concept.
- Remember that other people can (and will) use your terms. Consider thinking briefly about future use cases alongside your own use case.
Avoid repetitive tree structures. Remember, you can use two tags on an asset to suggest a relationship that isn't represented in the ontology. Using the example below, you could tag assets with both the Education Stage and the Interventions.
Try
AvoidEducation
Education Stage
Preschool
K-12
Higher Education
Interventions
Counseling
Tutoring
Education
Preschool
Interventions
Tutoring
Counseling
K-12
Interventions
Counseling
Tutoring
Higher Education
Interventions
Counseling
Tutoring
Place Trees
Use the places viewer (by searching or browsing) to determine whether an existing place suits your needs.
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