Keywords and beyond
Martin Komenda
The term keyword may relate to different parts of human interests such as linguistic or informatics.
The dictionary has described three definitions from various views:
1. A word that serves as a key, as to the meaning of another word, a sentence, passage, or the
like: Search the database for the keyword “Ireland.”
2. A word used to encipher or decipher a cryptogram, as a pattern for a transposition
procedure or the basis for a complex substitution.
3. Also called catchword. Library Science. A significant or memorable word or term in the title,
abstract, or text of an item being indexed, used as the index entry. [1]
It is necessary to understand that keyword is abstract term. As you can see above, it seems to be very
complicated to define keywords themselves. The definition of keyword is mainly driven by the topic
and context.
My field of study covers development of web-oriented portal solution for optimization medical
curriculum at Masaryk University. There should be interesting apply various principles for easy
categorization, clear visualization and advanced searching. In my point of view, keywords can be
powerful help for ensuring effective search functions within huge amount of educational data. For
example each keyword can play a role of connector between courses, annotations, learning
outcomes and learning unit. In this case keywords are defined as a short and apt phrase, which
plainly describe an object. In case of large textual study materials, keywords can be determined by
the word-frequency statistical analysis. There appears one very important complication – Czech
language. All chosen methods have to be adapted and deeply evaluated before application.
[1] Dictionary.com [Online]. Available: http://dictionary.reference.com/ [Accessed: 03-October-2011].