Eurovoc and parliamentary documents:
a semi-automatic classification
experience at the Camera dei deputati
Calogero Salamone
Luxembourg, 19 november 2010
General
Establishing techniques to allow citizens access
to legal information is a matter of primary
importance in terms of the fundamentals of
public service
Classification of parliamentary and legal
resources provide an important support for
research
History
In 1969/1970, Italy’s Chamber of Deputies and
Senate began to consider the classification of
laws, in the context of early automation projects
of the Parliament
An Automatic machine dictionary of Italian
language (“Camera 72”) was projected to be
used for the information retrieval of legal texts
History
The project should have included a research
system based on the storage of the full text of
laws, decrees, treaties etc. dating back to 1848
An accurate legal-linguistic analysis was to
establish a classification system to identify and
resolve the problems of homographs, polysemy,
shifts of meanings
This project was abandoned
History
In 1992 the thesaurus TESEO (TEsauro Senato
per l’Organizzazione dei documenti parlamentari)
was adopted for the classification of the bills’
database managed by the Senate
The same thesaurus was adopted for the
database of parliamentary oversight (Sindacato
ispettivo) managed by the Chamber of deputies
(questions to the government, motions and
resolutions)
History
TESEO includes 3650 terms grouped into 45
thematic areas (Top Terms), derived from an old
home-made classification system and arranged
according to the logical structure of the Universal
Decimal Classification (UDC)
There are only 358 language equivalent terms
(non-descriptors) used for cross-referencing
From TESEO to EUROVOC
The use of TESEO at Chamber of Deputies was
overall satisfactory
Difficulties were sometimes encountered in some
areas due to the vagueness or absence of
appropriate descriptors
These problems led to creating a supplementary
list with additional descriptors
From TESEO to EUROVOC
In 2005 the Chamber began to consider whether
to switch from TESEO to EUROVOC
We considered inter alia the advantages of
multilingual classification, including the possibility
of connecting different legal and social
phenomena under a single system of
categorization
From TESEO to EUROVOC
We also considered the larger number of
descriptors available and the even bigger
number of language equivalent terms (nondescriptors) available for the italian language
There are some areas arranged in an EU
perspective that can be difficult to use in a
national perspective.
From TESEO to EUROVOC
We hope to gradually extend Classification
through Eurovoc thesaurus from policy-setting
and oversight documents to the whole
information system
That’s why we developed a map to match and
link the descriptors of Eurovoc to those of
TESEO
Automatic indexing
We know that automatic classification processes
do not achieve the same quality as human
indexing does
They can be efficient enough to be used for
specific purposes, e.g. to automatically index
documents that otherwise would not be indexed
at all, or to support the process of human
indexing
Automatic indexing
The Chamber of deputies chose to test
automatic indexing on policy-setting and
oversight documents
These are texts written in everyday language
whose length is usually limited
Automatic indexing
The application of automatic indexing to the
classification of legislative texts is probably more
difficult
Legislative texts present a higher level of
formalization of language and the consistency of
documentary units that should be indexed (up to
the level of the paragraphs), may probably be
too short for the application of automated tools
Automatic indexing
The Chamber of Deputies decision to use an
automated classification system was finalised in
2005
In an initial phase we started by testing
automatic classification through TESEO
descriptors
In a second phase started in 2006, the program
was set to automatic classification with Eurovoc
thesaurus
Automatic indexing
In 2008, with the beginning of the 16th
Parliament, the Eurovoc classification of policysetting and oversight documents of the Chamber
of Deputies and the Senate was launched
Automatic indexing
We selected a semantic technology solution
(COGITO by Expert System), which
automatically suggests a set of descriptors to be
applied to each document
Each document is analyzed and interpreted in
order to be archived quickly in the corresponding
category
Automatic indexing
The categorizer automatically analyzes each
document and suggests a list of descriptors that
could be used
This list is checked, modified and validated by a
professional operator
Automatic indexing
The current procedure is in fact semi-automatic
Automatic suggestions are modified and
integrated (amended and supplemented)
The operator is responsible for the selection and
final results
Automatic indexing
So far, the classification suggested by Cogito
categorizer has been used by transferring it
manually to another application in order to record
Eurovoc descriptors in the database used for
research
Automatic indexing
Automatic indexing
Automatic indexing
Automatic indexing
Automatic indexing
History
A new integrated application, Camer@voc, is
now available, which enables the automatic
Cogito categorizer to analyse all the texts, and
then to revise them, as well as validate and
record Eurovoc descriptors
History
Camer@voc is a Web application created to
manage the automatic classification of policysetting and oversight documents
The application also allows the management of
various stages of classification and its history
History
Camer@voc is entirely developed in an open
source environment using three-tier architecture
Applicative infrastructure is divided into three
different modules dedicated respectively to the
user interface (View), the functional logic also
called business logic (Model) and the data
persistence management (Controller)
Automatic indexing
Main functionalities:
Sampling of new texts needing to be classified
Automatic indexing
Automatic indexing
Main functionalities:
Display lists of documents automatically classified,
divided by classification status
Automatic indexing
Automatic indexing
Main functionalities:
Viewing and editing the automatic classification of
a document; confirmation and subsequent storage
of the final classification
Automatic indexing
Automatic indexing
Automatic indexing
Future developments include a phase of
extensive and deep fine-tuning
The aim is to check whether the system
ultimately can lead to a high level of response so
that it can be considered acceptable - even
temporarily - without human intervention
Automatic indexing
In case of positive results, we can consider the
possibility of publishing automatic classification
before revising it
Users would be warned about this characteristic
by a message like “Classification to be reviewed”
Questions to:
salamone_c@camera.it