1 of 13

Place names

Vocabulary examples for Down Under Dagstuhl

27 September - 1 October 2021

Susan Birtles

2 of 13

3 of 13

Example 1.�Place type

Initial driver
Streamline production of the
Composite Gazetteer of Australia

4 of 13

Example 1.�Place type

Problem
Creating from 10 local code lists into 1 national code list.
. 1 person. 1 computer. Manual process.
- evolution of local code lists
- narrow vs broader terms
- Some duplications
- variability of human interpretation

Solution
1. Update national code list
2. Agree that everyone would supply data using those new codes.
3. Agreement from colleagues as well - place types NOT place name types.

5 of 13

Key points

Moved away from codes - all feature terms were full words, consideration given to ‘average’ users.
Three tiers – 424 place types – most users are interested in all - enable some logical grouping to enable suites of place name products rather than a single massive gazetteer.
Fully adopted the place types used by SCUFN
No duplication of terms – if term already used by SCUFN we found a different one for similar land based features
Avoid multiple definitions for terms – see crater example. Good candidate for hierarchy of broader and narrower terms rather than set groupings
Included terms to assist where there’s similar or narrower terms – data entry and data discovery. No definitions.
Examples – carried over, not a focus.

Once all endorsed, terms were built into rule sets within the composite gazetteer portal, and each state and territory went off and did what they needed to do in their databases or data prep routines to map to those term. Some reviewed their databases and changed or added terms, others change them before supplying the data, others again did a mix of both.

But we weren’t thinking about vocabs or linked data at the time.

6 of 13

7 of 13

8 of 13

9 of 13

Example 1.�Place type

For consideration

1. Maintenance

Corrections/clarifications
Expansion

2. Governance and notifications

3. Learnings for the next vocabs

Place name types

Maintenance

Will be clarifications, most likely to definitions or included terms
Will be expansion of some terms e.g. road, which we wouldn’t likely define but we would consider defining a relationship to another standard or vocab that that was appropriate.
Will be additions

Most likely in the administrative types to support other business
Current example is adding a place type for first nations
Lots of other use cases for consideration e.g. police districts example from Len and Sandra’s work

Governance and notifications

Source vocab (spreadsheet) managed by WGPN
In theory - proposals accepted from all member agencies, ICSM, and ICSM working groups – in practice only members for place name data management so far
Updates to one area of GA - changes to scripting and PDS for the Composite Gazetteer of Australia
Updates to another area of GA – for vocab updates

10 of 13

Example 2.�Place name type��

Possible broad terms…	CGA currently contains…
- Official	Some
“Unofficial” Historical Recorded Collected (indigenous) Proposed	None

Federated data products

Useability

trust

Standardisation

Compliance

Visibility

11 of 13

12 of 13

Example 2.�Place name type

Official
A place name sanctioned by a legally constituted names authority and currently applied within its jurisdiction.

NT. Registered NT. Assigned Vic. Registered.
Vic. Base Qld. Approved
Qld. Unapproved (of certain place types) NZ. Adopted
NZ. Altered. NZ. Approved. NZ. Assigned.
NZ. Official by other legislation. NZ. Valid. NZ. Validated.

13 of 13

Example 2.�Place name type

For consideration

1. What do we create?

- a new vocab of just the agreed national terms?
- or include the state/territory place name types as narrower terms? Or comments?
- Or arrange for all the state territory place name types to be published as vocabs – i.e. 11 place name type vocabs for Aus.

2. How can builders of FAIR vocabs guide how un-FAIR vocabs are designed? Or ensure legacy issues aren’t unnecessarily proliferated?