Business analysis, operations analysis, ABC analysis?

Thesauri are collections of specialist terms that are intended to describe the content of a subject area as clearly as possible. The aim is to define one preferred term for a subject. This standardised term should represent the subject in the correct context.

In subject databases, the keyword field in the metadata record of a publication is based on the concept of a thesaurus. The keyword field contains information about the content with one word (or a sequence of words).

On the one hand, a thesaurus provides you with a term to use when thematically searching for the best results. When you enter a term into the search box, the STW will suggest standardised terms that can be used in the EconBiz database. For example, entering “ABC analysis” will redirect to “business analysis”.

On the other hand, a thesaurus opens up a network of terms that will help you to explore a topic. This will greatly help with you preparing your research using a topic table as it provides you with potentisal search terms. The STW offers broader, narrower and related terms, English translations and terms from other thesauri, which you can transfer into your topic table and use to search in various databases.

The STW is freely accessible online as well as being linked in EconBiz. To enable access to PDF full texts in the database, we recommend using a VPN connection for searches in EconBiz. You can find other relevant subject databases for your research in DBIS.

Tip: You can also check in other databases to see if they have a thesaurus function or suggest standardised terms.