RDA Alignment of Multilingual Vocabularies in the Social Sciences and Humanities WG

This working group intends to address challenges concerning the interoperability multilingual nature of controlled vocabularies in the social sciences and humanities (SSH).

Controlled vocabularies are a major discovery tool in the digital environment and this is true also for the social sciences and humanities (SSH). However, while such vocabularies would seem one of the most appropriate tools to ensure a high visibility of the SSH research outputs, the availability, usage, and interoperability of controlled vocabularies remains very heterogeneous. They remain for the most part disconnected from one another, differing not only in scope, but in methodology, accessibility, and level of standardization. From this first set of observations derives the necessity to at least harmonize their discoverability level within the SSH and beyond.

The working group plans to address these issues by providing collectively approved recommendations for creating, extending, updating, and aligning multilingual vocabularies in the SSH. The objective of this RDA WG, currently co-chaired by OPERAS RI (open scholarly communication in the European Research Area for Social sciences and humanities research infrastructure), the coordinator of TRIPLE (Transforming Research through Innovative Practices for Linked interdisciplinary Exploration), is to focus on a part of the SSHOC (Social Sciences & Humanities Open Cloud) vocabulary roadmap and to collect from a broader community both insights and feedback about a methodology for the alignment of controlled vocabularies in many languages.

Type Title Date Link
Presentation RDA Alignment of multilingual vocabularies in Social Sciences and Humanities WG:Vocabularies Management April, 2025 Alignment of multilingual vocabularies in SSH WG:Vocabularies Management
Meeting notes RDA Alignment of multilingual vocabularies in Social Sciences and Humanities WG Rolling Meeting Notes Rolling RDA Alignment of multilingual vocabularies in the SSH WG - Rolling Meeting Notes
GitHub Repository n/a   n/a
RDA page     RDA Alignment of multilingual vocabularies in the SSH WG
Case Statement   July-August 2024 RDA Alignment of multilingual vocabularies in the SSH WG Case Statement
Group’s Zotero library     RDA Alignment SSH Voc WG Zotero library
Group’s Methods document     RDA Alignment SSH Voc WG Methodology, timeline, objectives