Terms in the thesaurus were collected from a variety of sources including KM glossaries, literature, databases, and classification schemes. These sources are listed in the reference section of the thesaurus. Each entry displays hierarchical, associative, and equivalence relationships through six type of indicators. These indicators are BT= Broader Term; NT= Narrower Term; RT= Related Term; SN= Scope Note; USE= Use; UF= Used For.

The intent of the scope note is to clarify the meaning of the descriptors within the specific domain of the thesaurus. The scope notes for this thesaurus, therefore, define the meaning and usage of the terms as they are used in the business world and allow users to select the most appropriate term for their search. The definitions were taken from three glossaries: The language of knowledge, Gotcha glossary of knowledge management terms, and the ICASIT glossary of knowledge management terms.

The rest of the indicators define the characteristic of relationships between terms. Three relationships are represented: equivalence, hierarchical, and associative.

USE and UF are indicators of Equivalence relationships. The terms are considered to be equal in the specified domain. In other words, multiple terms may refer to the same concept. A USE indicator directs the user from a non-preferred descriptor to the preferred descriptor. The UF indicator shows the non-preferred terms related to the preferred descriptor.  

CKO
USE Chief Knowledge Officer

situated learning
UF experiential learning

The hierarchical relationship links terms to broader and narrower terms. The generic relationship represents a kind or variety relation to a broader concept. For example, carnations are a kind of flower. The part-whole relationship indicates whether a term is part of a whole or whether it can be broken down into smaller parts. An example would be petals are part of a flower and a flower can be broken down into separate parts such as petals and stems.

carnations
BT flowers

flowers
NT carnations
NT petals

petals
BT flowers

Associative relationships are non-hierarchical relationships and are defined in terms of aiding searches. The terms are considered relevant to the entry term and are listed to help users to focus their search.

benchmarks
RT best practices

customer capital
RT human capital
RT structural capital

The KM adheres to the guidelines outlined in the ANSO-NISO Z39.19-1993 standard, Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri. The Z39.19 standard is a widely accepted set of specific guidelines for the contents, display, construction and maintenance of thesauri. It is geared toward the post-coordination, which is especially useful for this thesaurus. The formulation of the descriptors is based on the literary warrant of the term. Although the guidelines state that hyphens should be avoided, if the term commonly uses them they are retained in the descriptor.

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