Abstracts of articles

The Strategic Role of Thesauruses in the Management of Reference Resources

With an emphasis on Qur'anic sciences

Mohammad Hadi Yaqubnejad[1]

Abstract

Attempts to conduct research and promote Islamic culture and knowledge at a comprehensive level, through using well-known scientific principles and transnational experiences, and avoiding local personal viewpoints, have always been the focus of thinkers. The question is, "Is there any other way to increase scientific productivity and decrease high costs of management of reference sources such as encyclopedias and dictionaries and the like, and how to carry out research and compile them in the Islamic field, apart from what is common today?" To answer this question, the author deals with the extraordinary role of the well-known thesaurus machine and its method in managing, designing, and compiling reference sources and emphasizes its importance in utilizing information and knowledge studies.

He believes that this standard creates a fundamental change in the management, organization, logic, and structure of reference works in the field of religion. Therefore, it is considered an effective stage in such scientific research, and analyzes and examines this strategy through providing examples of Quranic sciences.

Keywords: Islamic reference sources, dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses, Islamic research management.

An Introduction to the Thesaurus of New Logics

Abdorahim Soleimani Behbahani[2]

Abstract

The new logics does not have a long history in Iran. However, in recent years, this science has been developed and promoted through publishing translated and compiled works as well as defining academic disciplines and sub-disciplines. Compiling a thesaurus in this field in order to store, classify, and retrieve information in line with quick notification and based on new technology tools is one of the requirements of this emerging knowledge.

However, given that, the origin of the "new logic" is in the West and the existing issues in the published works in Iran including translations and compilations are usually translations of the Western works, there are some difficulties in doing this, including not using standard terms and unified keywords to transfer knowledge concepts to Persian. One of the problems, which arises, is the fallacy of the verbal sharing and confusion of readers and audiences of these works. This paper, which is organized in a descriptive-analytic method, in addition to providing a brief overview of what modern logics and its various branches are, as well as examples of the discrepancies and multiplicities of the terms related to the key concepts of new logics in published works (including translated and compiled works), provides a structure from the first categories of "the Thesaurus of New Logics" and represents the different terms related to single sense through the equivalence relation. This study suggests accelerating the compilation of the thesaurus of new logic to reduce the inconsistency in the use of the terms and its undesirable consequences.

Keywords: Thesauruses, new logics, structure of the thesaurus, mathematical logic, symbolic logic.

The Role of Jurisprudence Ontology in Jurisprudential Subjectology

Hossein Hassanzadeh[3]

Abstract

Subjectology is one of fundamental issues in jurisprudential inferences and one of the main concerns of the jurist is the accurate knowledge of jurisprudential subjects. Some jurists also stated that 50 percent of the jurist's job is knowing the subjects. The question is whether information management methods can be used to identify new jurisprudential subjects. The purpose of this study is to prove that the ontology method, one of the new methods of knowledge studies, can assist jurists in the identification of jurisprudential subjects. To achieve this goal, it has been proven through a descriptive and analytical method that one of the ways to identify jurisprudential subjects is to promote the secondary issues of one subject on the one hand and on the other hand, to discover the type of its actual and ontological relationships with different jurisprudential subjects and because of its nature and texture, the ontology provides such a context. Therefore, it will enable jurists to identify the jurisprudential subjects better.

Keywords: Jurisprudential Subjectology, ontology, requirements of the time and place, ontology of jurisprudence.

A Comparative Approach to Specialized Encyclopedias of Islamic Theology; Strengths and Weaknesses

Sayyid Ayub Hashemi Sisakht[4]

Enayat Sharifi[5]

Abstract

With the increasing volume of human information in various fields, researchers have found it difficult to access sufficient and useful information in a short time for their subjects. Compiling "reference resources" such as dictionaries and encyclopedias has been one of the human solutions to this problem. This paper examines and evaluates the most important encyclopedias and dictionaries that have been compiled in the field of Islamic theology from 1991 to 2008, and have been made available to the scholars. Before going into the evaluation of each of these works, some of the reference resources, including dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias, and their differences, roles and functions in developing human knowledge, are briefly described. Then, the main topic, which is the evaluation of theological dictionaries and encyclopedias and their strengths and shortcomings, are going to be dealt with. There are five resources in both Arabic and Persian. Finally, another resource of Islamic theological encyclopedia that will be published in the near future is introduced and its advantages are mentioned.

Keywords: Reference resources, lexicon, dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, encyclopedias of Islamic theology.

The Qualitative Evaluation of the Thesaurus of Islamic Theology of the Research Center for Islamic Documents and Information Management; Content Evaluation

Kurosh Najibi[6]

Abstract

The current article seeks to criticize and examine the valuable work "The Thesaurus of Islamic Theology", which was published for the first time in the history of the world, by observing the universal standards of thesauruses, and with the effort of Islamic Seminary and Academic scholars in Islamic Propagation Office of Qom Seminary. The author carries out this study to empower this valuable thesaurus and fix its shortcomings in the second edition as well as to enrich these types of studies in Islamic Republic of Iran, with the belief in the poor quality of research papers in the field of the Persian thesauruses evaluation. This critique and examination is a qualitative one that focuses on content based on theology and thesaurus compilation features. Hence, it concerns the structural empowerment of the thesaurus, the validity of its semantic relations and rules of its form. The method of this study is library research and based on description and analysis. Finally, recognizing the uniqueness of this work and its scientific and formative strength, this study points out some of the shortcomings in the form, structure and conceptual relations of the work and while providing the proposed new structure, offers solutions for the empowerment of semantic relationships and the rules of its form. It is hoped to consider these points in the next edition and also criticize and examine the thesauruses more seriously.

Keywords: Thesauruses, the Thesaurus of Islamic Theology, quantitative evaluation of thesaurus, qualitative evaluation of thesaurus, the Research Center for Islamic Documents and Information Management.

Ontology[7]:The Foundations of Its Formation, Place, and Application in Information and Semantic Web

Rasul Sa'adat[8]

Mozafar Cheshmeh Sohrabi[9]

Abstract

With the advancement of science and the rise of information throughout the history of human civilization, the need for more effective storage and retrieval of this information has become increasingly significant. Therefore, through the scientific evolution, storage and retrieval tools were also evolved and shifted gradually from the keyword matching system toward meaning. The emergence of these tools, from ancient manual lists to the thematic headings in the nineteenth-century as well as thesauruses in the twentieth-century, illustrates such developments. Finally, with the arrival of computer sciences and digital environment specially web in the late twentieth century, the paradigm changed from the traditional storage and retrieval tools and based on keyword matching towards the tools of semantic relationship explanation, since with the emergence of the semantic web today, the use of ontologies has become crucial for the semantic and conceptual retrieval of information and knowledge on the Web. Among the conducted studies, there are only a few studies that have examined the history and foundations of ontology formation from the beginning and focused on its concept and application in the field of information. Accordingly, the current paper first deals with foundation of ontology formation, concept, and evolution from the beginning until now through a library research method and documentary research method, and then explains the place of ontologies in the field of information and retrieval of information especially semantic web.

Keywords: Creating ontology, ontologies, information retrieval, semantic web, information storage, information representation.

Islamic Seminary Political Knowledge and Its Future: A case study of political thought of jurisprudential Islam

Reza Isania[10]

Abstract

Although apparently Islamic seminaries do not follow a course under the title of so-called "political sciences", it has been the Islamic seminary that has presented two socio-political theories in Iran so far and has made it practical in the society. We claim that the existence or non-existence, strength or weakness and being in or out of the context of political thought in Islamic Seminaries is based on the type of attitude to Islam. Therefore, the author has tried to answer the main question of the study which is "What is and will be the place of political thought or knowledge in Islamic seminary?", through a roadmap method that is one of the methods used in futurology (future studies), with this hypothesis that "if Islam is examined from the viewpoint of political-jurisprudential Islam discourse, then, Neither from the perspective of civilizational Islam nor from the perspective of Salafi Islam, we will see the emergence of political thought up to theorizing as well as the establishment of a university and a political college among the clergymen". This paper states: The distinction between seminary thought on politics in terms of trends, factors as well as resource search, the ideal future of political thought based on jurisprudential-political Islam, unlike the other two perspectives, would make political thought and knowledge develop. Thus, through this study, first, the Islamic seminaries, which support political-jurisprudential Islam, will discover their strengths and weaknesses, and there will be an atmosphere for the importance and development of political thought in the Islamic seminaries of the Islamic Republic of Iran based on localization.

Keywords: Jurisprudential Islam, political thought, Futurology, roadmap, seminaries (clergymen).

The Needs Assessment of Data Storage in the Libraries of Islamic Propagation Office of Qom Seminary with an Approach of Customer Relationship Management

Yahya Eyvazi[11]

Saeed Ghaffari[12]

Abstract

Libraries and information centers, like any other organizations, seek to make their Customers satisfied by offering the ideal services, and library managers try to achieve this objective by focusing on information technologies and utilizing management techniques.

As a tool accessible to the managers, the customer relationship management system requires the use of information technologies. In terms of the type, the study is practical, and in terms of the method, it is descriptive-survey research. The population of the present study is the libraries of Islamic Propagation Office of Qom Seminary. Thirty individuals (senior managers, IT managers, department heads) were selected through census sampling method and fifty users were selected by using random sampling method. First, the needed data was collected through using the library resources including books, journals' papers, papers on the websites and internet. Then, in order to collect the data, a research-made questionnaire of data storage needs assessment was used to collect the data from senior managers, IT managers and departments' heads, and Libqual Questionnaire was used to collect the data for the level of users' satisfaction with service delivery. The findings show that senior managers, IT managers, and department's heads need to create a data storage with a customer relationship management approach, and the level of users' satisfaction with library service delivery is almost low. Carrying out this study reveals the need for creating a data storage with regard to strategic management processes with a customer relationship management approach in the libraries of Islamic Propagation Office of Qom Seminary.

Keywords: Data storage, libraries of Islamic Propagation Office of Qom Seminary, customer relationship management, strategic management, libraries.

1. Assistant professor at Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy and Direct of the Research Center for Islamic Documents and Information Management. Mh.yaghobnejad@isca.ac.ir

2. Assistant professor at Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy. soleimani@isca.ac.ir

3. Assistant professor at Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy. h.hasanzadeh@isca.ac.ir

4. Researcher and expert of the Encyclopedia of the Research Center for Islamic Information and Documents Management. sa.hashemi@isca.ac.ir

5. Associate professor and head of the department for Islamic knowledge at University of Allameh Tabatabaei. enayatsharifi@yahoo.com

6. Assistant professor at Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy. najibi@isca.ac.ir

7. In recent years, in the Iranian academic community, the term "creating ontology" is used instead of "ontology". In the current study, the term "ontology" has been used to consider coherence in the text.

8. PhD student in information science and knowledge management. saadat.rasul@edu.ui.ac.ir

9. Associate professor in information science and knowledge management. mo.sohrabi@edu.ui.ac.ir

10. Assistant professor at Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy and head of the department of political sciences at the Research Center for Political Thought and Sciences. r.eisania@isca.ac.ir

11. M.A in information science and knowledge management at Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy. yahya@bou.ac.ir

12. Associate professor at Payam Noor University. Ghaffari130@pnu.ac.ir