When to Add a New Term

As noted previously, the ever-evolving world of compliance has created the need for a living terminological resource for technical terms. For that reason the Compliance Dictionary is constantly updated with new terms and definitions to serve this need. It is however important to discern between scenarios that warrant a new term and those that do not. Adding terms willy nilly would require more hours than there are in a day, and would leave little time for even reading Authority Documents, let alone mapping them into the system!

The main reason for adding a new term is that it is significant to a particular mandate. Primary Terms are the essential components of a mandate. They are the action to be performed (primary verb) and the object on which the action should be performed. The meaning of the mandate should be accessible in the UCF dictionary and verifiable by reading the selected UCF definitions. If a definition critical to a mandate is not accessible in the UCF dictionary, users cannot independently verify that our Mapping decisions are appropriate.

Another reason to add a term is if it is widely used in a particular industry. The UCF Dictionary tracks industry trends in term usage. As such, it is essential that terms with high industry usage are created. Similarly, terms that appear regularly in industry glossaries (or other authoritative sources), should be added. Terms that appear in an Authority Document’s glossary should be added even if they are uncommon in their industry and/or do not appear in many (if any) authoritative sources. In this case the Authority Document is considered the most authoritative source.

Terms that will be categorized as an element in the UCF Dictionary, must be represented by a definition with the appropriate element. Associating a term with the appropriate element allows for the citation to be associated with relevant data in the affected element tables. Similarly, terms that will be associated with a Common Control must be created regardless of their prominence in the industry, glossaries, or other authoritative sources. Since match accuracy ratings (or match percentages) depend on the linkages between the tagged terms in mandates and the tagged terms in controls we need to ensure that - before we create a new control - all of the terms in the control title have corresponding terms and definitions in the dictionary.

Here are a few more tips when deciding whether or not to add a term:

• While Primary Terms provide meaning, Secondary Terms provide context. Because purpose of tagging is to identify mandates, secondary terms almost never have to be created.

• Terms with low industry usage should only be added if the mandate cannot be effectively expressed in more common terms. This occasionally occurs for new products, new technologies, or highly-specialized technical terms.

• Terms with few instances of industry glossarization can be added, however it may not be necessary if the term isn’t integral to the mandate or can be expressed in a different way (i.e. another term or combination of terms)

• Terms that appear in an Authority Document’s glossary, but will not be tagged as part of a mandate do not need to be added to the Dictionary.

Since term creation is one of the most time consuming aspect of Mapping, it’s in your best interest to get it right the first time. With that in mind, please refer to the Ten Commandments of Term Entry.