Managing Contributions to the Unified Astronomy Thesaurus

Abstract

The Unified Astronomy Thesaurus (UAT) project managers have long defined the UAT as "an open, interoperable, and community-supported thesaurus." How do we solicit the detailed, comprehensive, and consistent community feedback that is required to keep the UAT relevant? The Steering Committee for the UAT has developed a visual organizational tool that lets reviewers suggest new concepts and restructure the existing hierarchy. Researchers and librarians can use this "Sorting Tool" to submit contributions and feedback to the UAT. The UAT Curator adds feedback to the UAT’s GitHub Issues, which allows for tracking, searching, and referencing the suggestions. The UAT Curator implements the accepted suggestions, preparing to include them in a future release of the Unified Astronomy The saurus. This process of continual improvement ensures that the UAT project remains community supported.