Other vocabularies

Other corporate vocabularies

In addition to the Digital Europa Thesaurus, the Publications Office hosts and manages a number of controlled vocabularies that are critical to use when describing aspects of content other than the main subject matter. Below is a sample list of some of the more commonly used corporate vocabularies. Using the same vocabularies to describe these aspects ensures that information systems of the European institutions ‘speak’ a common language, making it possible to share and disseminate content to a wider audience.

Resource Type – Used to describe the type of publication.

• Some examples of resource types are: General publications, Factsheet, Report, News Article, Press release, Study.

Public Event Type – Used to describe public events.

• Some examples of public event types are: Public Debates, Training and Workshops, Exhibitions.

Corporate Body – Names of EU corporate bodies. Some other international and national corporate bodies are also included.

• Some examples of corporate bodies are: Directorate-General for Competition, European Fisheries Control Agency, Cedefop, Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, etc.

Using the above and other corporate vocabularies such as EU Programme, Country, or Place managed by the EU Publications Office is essential for ensuring interoperability between systems by using the same common human and machine understandable language to identify content published on the web. It also fosters efficiency since updates to the vocabularies (e.g. a new funding programme name) are centralised and handled by the EU Publications Office.

Local Taxonomies

In cases where there is a need to use a terminology tailored to specific requirements, content owners have the option of creating their own local taxonomies using their content management system. However, they should be aware that local taxonomies stay ‘local’ and do not allow communication between information systems. Local taxonomies are a good solution for enabling sorting and searching content within one site but, to enable interoperability and wider dissemination of their content, stakeholders should also use the DET and other corporate vocabularies alongside their local taxonomies and avoid locking their content into an information silo.

For information on how to create a local taxonomy on the Europa Web Publishing Platform, see the related pages of the EWPP documentation.