Automated subject classification of textual web documents

• Published in: Journal of documentation Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 350 - 371
• Main Author: Golub, Koraljka
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bradford Emerald Group Publishing Limited 01.01.2006; Emerald
• Subjects: Algorithms; Automatic text analysis; Automation; Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap; Classification; Cluster analysis; Computational Linguistics; Content analysis; Controlled languages; Digital libraries; Document management; Documents; Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering; Electronic documents; Elektroteknik och elektronik; Engineering and Technology; Exact sciences and technology; Indexing. Classification. Abstracting. Syntheses; Information and communication sciences; Information and document structure and analysis; Information processing and retrieval; Information retrieval; Information science. Documentation; Internet; Library and Information Science; Library Science; Metadata; Multivariate Analysis; Sciences and techniques of general use; Teknik; Text categorization; Vocabularies & taxonomies; World Wide Web; Automation; Internet; Document management; Controlled languages; Classification; Automatic classification; Controlled vocabulary; Electronic document; Method; Bibliographic review; Subject; Content analysis
• ISSN: 0022-0418; 1758-7379; 1758-7379
• DOI: 10.1108/00220410610666501

Purpose - To provide an integrated perspective to similarities and differences between approaches to automated classification in different research communities (machine learning, information retrieval and library science), and point to problems with the approaches and automated classification as such.Design methodology approach - A range of works dealing with automated classification of full-text web documents are discussed. Explorations of individual approaches are given in the following sections: special features (description, differences, evaluation), application and characteristics of web pages.Findings - Provides major similarities and differences between the three approaches: document pre-processing and utilization of web-specific document characteristics is common to all the approaches; major differences are in applied algorithms, employment or not of the vector space model and of controlled vocabularies. Problems of automated classification are recognized.Research limitations implications - The paper does not attempt to provide an exhaustive bibliography of related resources.Practical implications - As an integrated overview of approaches from different research communities with application examples, it is very useful for students in library and information science and computer science, as well as for practitioners. Researchers from one community have the information on how similar tasks are conducted in different communities.Originality value - To the author's knowledge, no review paper on automated text classification attempted to discuss more than one community's approach from an integrated perspective.