Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms

1. Introduction

The Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms is a bilingual standardized vocabulary developed to facilitate the indexing and retrieval of resources available from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). In addition to the indexing and searching functions, the Indexing Terms is meant to clarify terminology and provide a standard, common language for use within the fields of citizenship and immigration.

1.1 Functions

The Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms is meant to be used as a source of standardized terminology for the production of indexes to information resources in all media. The standardization of the external form and the meaning of index terms will result in a consistent representation of a particular concept or subject within the index.

1.2 Background and Development

The Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms integrates terms found in print and electronic resources within Citizenship and Immigration Canada with terms from the Subject Thesaurus developed by the Depository Services Program, the UNHCR's International Thesaurus of Refugee Terminology (Second edition), and the MAIS Thesaurus created by the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.

1.3 Abbreviations

The following standard abbreviations are employed throughout the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms.

  • FRA: French equivalent

  • SN: Scope note

  • UF: Used for

1.4 Descriptors

Descriptors are the terms that have been authorized for use in indexing, information searching, and for choice of subject descriptor for use in the metatag "dc.subject" in compliance with Common Look and Feel Standard 6.3.

1.5 Lead-in Terms

Lead-in terms should not be used for indexing purposes. In the alphabetical list, these terms are followed by a reference to the authorized descriptor employed in the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms to represent the same term or concept.

e.g.

  • Accommodations
    USE: Housing

  • Acculturation
    USE: Integration

  • Audits
    USE: Auditing

1.6 Relational Structure

Each preferred term is displayed with some or all of the following relationships to other indexing terms:

A French equivalent (FRA:)

The French equivalent to an English preferred term appears immediately below the preferred term itself:

e.g.

  • Citizenship
  • FRA: Citoyenneté

This French preferred term is displayed with its own set of relations to other thesaurus terms in the French version of the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms.

A scope note (SN:)

Terms are deliberately restricted in scope to selected meanings in order to satisfy the specific nature of this thesaurus. If the display of hierarchical relationships is not sufficient to unambiguously indicate the intended meaning of a term, then a scope note defining the term as used in this thesaurus will be appended to the term.

e.g.

  • British Evacuee Children
  • FRA: Enfant britannique évacué
  • SN: Use to describe works dealing with the program established during World War II in which children from Great Britain were sent to live with host families in safe haven countries throughout the Commonwealth to escape Nazi bombing campaigns.

One or more synonyms or quasi-synonyms (UF:)

In the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms, synonyms and quasi-synonyms are offered as lead-in terms. Lead-in terms, as discussed in a previous section, are not authorized for indexing purposes, but rather represent concepts or simple subjects similar to those represented by preferred terms.

e.g.

  • Historic sites
  • FRA: Lieu historique
  • UF: National historic sites

2. Guidelines for the Use of the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms for Indexing and for the Production of Indexes

Users should employ the following basic rules to ensure consistency of resource content representation throughout Citizenship and Immigration Canada

  • To represent a concept or a subject, be as specific as the list of authorized preferred terms permits.
    e.g. For a document on immigrants to Canada applying as an Investor, do not use the general descriptors Immigration or Business class immigrants, but rather the specific term Investors.

  • Choose as many descriptors as you need to.
    Use as many authorized controlled terms as possible to fully describe the contents of an information resource. However, avoid using more than six terms, since search precision decreases beyond six terms.
    More than one subject descriptor will be needed to describe most resources.

  • Enter the authorized descriptor exactly as it appears in the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms.
    Generally, this means that only the first letter of the first word is capitalized.

  • Index using either the English or French Indexing Terms.
    English terms must be applied to English-language documents, French terms to French-language documents and both English and French terms to bilingual documents.

3. Maintenance and Updating of the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms

The Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms will be maintained and updated by the Library at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Users are encouraged to forward any comments and suggestions about the Canadian Immigration and Citizenship Indexing Terms to the:

4. References

For more information, consult: