News – APO Blog

Synonyms are go!

APO is improving the way that search works on our website by updating our metadata with synonyms. The goal of synonym management is to help people who are looking for the same resources, but are using different search terms, reach the same results.

What’s another name for synonym?

Think of synonyms as bringing democracy, or equal opportunity, to the search experience. In the context of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the meaning of synonym is very broad. A key role of synonym management is establishing references between terms that share the same meaning, or in the context of a digital collection, are close in meaning. Some synonyms include:

ethical investment /
responsible investment /
socially responsible investing /
social investment.

These terms have been used interchangeably throughout policy literature. We want anyone searching with any of these terms to reach the same results without worrying about which is the ‘correct’ phrase.

29104083194_d6c0fd932e_k — Image: Cinnamon Sugar Donuts by Steven Depolo (Flickr)

What about initialisms and acronyms? They provide alternative search paths too – and we are establishing see references (i.e. alternative terms that have the same or similar meaning) between them, for example:

Islamic State /
ISIS /
ISIL /
Daesh /
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

And

LGBT /
LGBTQ /
non-heterosexual people /
GLBTQ people /
LGBTQ /
LGTBI /
LGBTIQ.

Some of these terms are taken from the FAST vocabulary which APO aligns with wherever possible in a bid to link into other collection metadata. Other terms were found in our search analytics report. And one typo was spotted by an APO editor – we added that too. Together they provide multiple access points to the same resources.

Note that we are not asserting that these concepts are identical – only that within the context of a policy collection, it makes sense for resources containing these various search terms to be found together. Some of these may be regarded as quasi-synonyms, or near-synonyms. (Are there many true equivalences in language? I doubt it.)

What about other lexical variants, such as common misspellings, local spellings, irregular and embedded plurals? There is only so much approximating and stemming (reducing words to their word stem, or root form) that a search engine can do. So we monitor our web traffic for additional terms that can be mapped to our resources, such as:

Aged care / Age care
Closing the gap / Close the gap
World Trade Organisation / World Trade Organization
Prescribed bodies corporate / Prescribed body corporates
Hygiene / Hygeine

Baking all day

You can’t have too many synonyms in a metadata repository. APO is continuously developing and managing lists of words that appear frequently in policy literature and in search behavior, creating see references that make the search experience consistent for all.

Synonym management is part of APO moderation workflow. Synonym identification is also an outcome of the Linked Semantic Platforms (LSP) project, which aims to enrich the user experience in APO’s resource database. So watch this space!

Oh, and BTW, synonym and cinnamon? That’s a homophone – potentially a mondegreen.

APO seeks new Director to set future vision

Analysis & Policy Observatory is about to enter a new phase in its evolution with a reinvigorated vision of how to provide evidence and insights in the age of open access, artificial intelligence and the digital economy. Do you, or someone you know, have what it takes to lead APO into the future?

APO is seeking a Director who will be responsible for leading the organisation into our next phase – providing vision and implementation of an exciting, relevant and sustainable strategy, with new data and information offerings for policy, consultant, research and practice audiences.

With a strong interest in research around evidence and data for public policy and practice, the new Director will be known as a research and thought leader, who will be motivated to generate contemporary innovative research and engagement activities around APO.

It will be crucial to advance APO as a nationally partnering and collaborating platform, with an increasingly international policy information market.

About APO at Swinburne

Analysis & Policy Observatory (originally named ‘Australian Policy Online’) began at Swinburne University of Technology in 2002 as an open access database for public policy resources. As a not-for-profit collaborative knowledge infrastructure and web platform, APO works with partners from universities and other organisations across Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

APO continues to be hosted by Swinburne University and run with the support of partner organisations – including the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) and the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Awarded the ‘Best Information Website’ at the 2014 Australian and New Zealand Internet Awards, APO is well established and boasts more than 4.2 million users from around the world and 16.4 million page views. You can find out more about APO on the About APO page.

Applying for the role

More information, including the position description, can be found on APO in the Jobs section: Director, Analysis & Policy Observatory (APO). Please circulate this link to those in your network who may be interested in this role. Applications close on 13 May 2019.

APO Digital Inclusion Collection relaunched

APO has relaunched the Digital Inclusion Collection with the support of the Centre for Social Impact at Swinburne University and Dr Chris K. Wilson, who will be writing a new Digital Inclusion review every month.

In recent years, digital inclusion has emerged as a critical area of investigation and policy development in Australia as it has elsewhere. Digital technologies have become progressively more deeply embedded in work, education, government, health, and other aspects of everyday experience. The goal of digital inclusion is to enable everyone to access and use digital technologies effectively and to do so in an affordable and sustainable manner.

APO’s Digital Inclusion Collection reflects and promotes these issues and we’re very pleased to relaunch the collection with the support of the Centre for Social Impact (Swinburne University node) through the expertise of Research Fellow, Dr Chris K. Wilson.

*Dr Chris K. Wilson speaking at Ageing in a Digital World a conference hosted by 3Bridges Community as part of their 3Point Connect series (Sydney, 2 April 2019)*

Chris is principal analyst for the Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) project, a collaborative venture between the Centre for Social Impact at Swinburne University, RMIT University, Telstra and Roy Morgan Research. As the expert collection curator, Chris will contribute new resources and review existing content in a monthly Digital Inclusion review. You can read his first review here APO Digital Inclusion Collection Brief: April 2019.

If you have feedback or questions about the APO Digital Inclusion Collection please get in touch with our Editorial Team at editors@apo.org.au.

APO user experience updates

We’ve been busy here at APO! The team has been making upgrades to APO and we’d like to show you some of our improvements…

Things that you can now do

Resources on APO

Citation tool: Download a citation for resources.
Pageviews: See how many times a resource has been viewed.
Related and Based On: Browse related resources suggestions.

APO Collections

Featured box: See the resource that has been highlighted by our Editors on a Collection page.

Featured box (*APO Digital Health Systems Collection)*

APO: The place to find places

APO’s website offers a number of ways to search and browse content. We have recently improved the way that you can find policy information that is relevant to a specific region or place.

APO publishes a geographical taxonomy of place names that can be used to browse and ‘drill down’ to content that is clustered around a region, country, province or city.

Image: Middle East by NASA on Wikimedia Commons

To make the most of APO’s geographical taxonomy feature, try browsing for resources about a place of interest:

Navigate to Browse from the home page
Scroll to the Geographic Location block of links
Select a term (e.g. ‘Middle East’).

You will notice on the right-hand side of your results that more specific place names appear and can be selected to further refine results.

geo1

Select a more specific geographical feature, and the overall number of items reduces with content closely fitted with the geographical area:

geo2

When a resource is selected, there may be more geographical features listed in the resource metadata which link to more content:

geo3

APO’s geographical taxonomy is a search feature that helps you find a range of policy information about a given place of interest. As more resources are added to APO, the geographical taxonomy is updated to reflect the growing database of policy information. We hope you find this feature useful.

First Peoples public policy collection launches

We are thrilled to announce the APO First Peoples & Public Policy Collection, established in partnership with Australia & new Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). This collection has been created to gather together First People’s digital policy resources all in one place.

The APO First Peoples & Public Policy Collection (FPPP Collection) highlights existing knowledge, databases and information that support policy and practice for First Peoples. It features resources for and by First Peoples and those working in Indigenous public policy and administration.

The collection was formally launched at the ANZSOG Reimagining Public Administration: First Peoples, governance and new paradigms conference on 21 February 2019 in Melbourne.

ANZSOG’s Catherine Althaus officially launches the APO First Peoples & Public Policy Collection at the Reimagining Public Administration conference (Melbourne, 21 February 2019)

Welcome to Carissa Godwin

With the arrival of this collection, we warmly welcome Carissa Godwin to the APO team. Carissa is the new Specialist Editor of First Peoples & Public Policy. She will be working with ANZSOG and members of the Indigenous community to curate and develop our First Peoples resources.

APO is hosted at Swinburne University of Technology, the first Australian University to have it’s Reconciliation Action Plan recognised at Elevate status.

Image: Gathering Knowledge. Artist: ARBUP Ash PETERS Wurundjeri/Taungurong Man, local artist and direct descendent of Coranderrk. This painting depicts the continuous cycle of footprints on a never ending journey travelling around Swinburne University’s campuses located on Wurundjeri land.

If you have feedback or queries about the FPPP collection, please get in touch with Carissa Godwin at cgodwin@apo.org.au. For more general enquiries about APO Collections, contact editors@apo.or.au.

Mint a DOI with APO

APO’s DOI minting service has quietly been around for more than a year now. I spoke to APO Editor Tim McCarthy about what DOIs are and what benefits they offer.

Emily: So Tim, can you explain what a DOI is, in a nutshell?

Tim: A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique alphanumeric string used to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet. You may have noticed that journals use a DOI link for electronically published articles.

Emily: Yes, I’ve noticed that. So why is APO minting DOIs if journals are already doing that?

Tim: DOIs are also becoming more common in publication metadata on government publications and grey literature. That’s basically where APO saw a need in the publishing landscape for minting DOIs.

Emily: What are the benefits of having a DOI?

Tim: Assigning a DOI to a resource adds a level of metadata to the publication that makes it easier to link to or share. The permanency of the link also makes it a more desirable inclusion in a citation. So it not only benefits authors and publishers, but digital libraries and researchers using publication citations as well.

Emily: Are there any special requirements for getting a DOI minted by APO?

Tim: APO can mint DOIs for certain publications. To be eligible, an author or publisher must be the copyright holder of a published, or soon-to-be published, resource and have the authority to grant APO permission to hold a full-text copy of the publication. It should be noted that only one DOI can be assigned per publication – DOI double dipping isn’t allowed as the identifier must be unique.

Emily: If an author or publisher would like a DOI minted by APO for their publication, what should they do?

Tim: They should send their DOI enquiry to APO at doi@apo.org.au and someone in our friendly editorial team will get the process started.

Emily: Cheers Tim. It’s great that APO is offering this service.

Tim: No worries. If people want to know more about the DOI system in general and how it works, the International DOI Foundation has plenty of resources on its website.

For all enquiries about APO’s DOI minting service, please email doi@apo.org.au.