Abstract:

The emerging reality of large libraries with digital, full-text documents and other digitized artifacts makes the development of a systematic approach to the analysis of concepts an urgent necessity for research, teaching and learning. Conceptual curation is an important development in curation of large digital repositories. It includes the use of semantic searches that reveal structured, multi-layered building blocks of concepts with lateral and hierarchical interactions. Concepts are labeled patterns in the data that encode ‘meaning’ in different domains of knowledge: semantic content embedded in them by the situation being documented, and the specific constraints associated with data generated during this evolutionary process. The emergent discipline of Concept Science is a novel generic approach to parsing and analyzing concepts, applicable to the various knowledge domains and professions; with tools for recognizing, representing, organizing, exploring, communicating, and manipulating knowledge encoded in controlled vocabularies of sublanguages; and document the evolution of content and structure of concepts and categorization, knowledge representation and use. Certificate in Conceptual Curation for Librarians, offered by iSchool Institute, Faculty of Information at University of Toronto, was designed for librarians in secondary and post-secondary institutions, and in professional learning programs; as well as in public and private organizations with libraries and archives. It enhances librarians’ pedagogical skills, and facilitates the development of innovative digital library tools that support conceptual thinking in research, teaching and learning. Working in small groups, librarians construct digital library tools in different institutional settings and knowledge domains; and create library research guides for enhancing well defined educational outcomes. The certificate program covers a total of 72 instruction hours, and includes the following topics.

Introduction to Concept Science: Concepts and conceptual relations: controlled vocabularies in sub-languages; lexical label and building blocks of a concept; Concept Parsing Algorithms (CPA); typology of concepts; multiple definitions and representations of a concept within and across sign systems; evolving concepts; creation of LibGuide for ‘Introduction to Concept Science’.

Knowledge Repositories: Digital full-text documents: type; availability; accessibility; creation of LibGuide for the construction of a Knowledge Repository for a course of study with ZOTERO in different knowledge domains.

Semantic searches: Exploring Key Word In Context (KWIC): concordance; co-occurrence; co-location; work frequencies; creation of LibGuide for learners’ use of KWIC text analysis with ZOTERO and SEASR tools; creation of course’ KWIC examples by instructors in different knowledge domains.

Interactive Concept Discovery (InCoD): Creating a learner’s Individual Index: annotation; tagging; Conceptual Footprint (CF) of a document; individual student’s learning-curve; Concept Maps; drilling to discover deeper levels of building blocks of a concept; Granularity of Meaning (GoM) of a document; Concepedia: aggregating Individual Indexes of all learners in the class; cumulative process-learning-curve of the class; creation of LibGuides for the construction and use of Individual Indexes, Concept Maps, and Concepedia; documenting mastery of knowledge for inclusion in individual learners’ ePortfolios.

Keywords:

Conceptual curation, Semantic searches, Interactive concept discovery, Certificate program for librarians.