Definition of some basic terms in computer and information science

Abstract

The impetus for the work described in this paper arose from observations reported in a letter to the Editor of this Journal (1). The sense of that letter was that those of us who have worked in the field now broadly called Computer and Information Science, have depended too long on the use of terms defined by example or through the vague specification of relationships (often weak) among entities. The term to which the author of the letter made specific reference (a term to which altogether too many interpretations are allied) was “thesaurus.” The reader will find that the term “thesaurus” is not defined in this paper but, as will be seen, a number of more basic terms have been selected as the starting point for a project of defining terms which are important in communicating about computer and information science. Copyright © 1973 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A Wiley Company