Users of the CIOS ComAbstracts database may notice that some records now appear with both keywords and "metaterms". Keywording is very important in large databases where keywords function to collect together related texts. Keywords provide simplified navigation for searchers by making available the classificatory expertise of the editorial staff, which is represented in the set of standardized terms coded into the keyword field of the database records. "Metaterms" enhance keywording by identifying in a separate field the larger categories of the discipline in which particular keywords are primarily relevant.

In an effort to improve the keywording of ComAbstracts records Tim Stephen has created new software that partially automates the keywording process while imposing greater standardization. The software functions by passing new abstract records through a series of more than 100 textual filters that add keywords to the records when particular critical terms are encountered. The list of critical terms is extensive having been constructed through analysis of word frequencies appearing within the ComAbstracts and ComIndex databases. All words achieving a significant frequency were identified and assigned to categories such as "rhetoric", "persuasion", "military and armed conflict", "radio", "broadcasting and media", "health", "marriage and intimacy", "nonverbal communication", "history", "television", "politics and government", "organizational", "sports", "social structure", "technologies", "semiotics", etc. When a term within an abstract is encountered by the software the term is added automatically to the keywords field of the abstract record and the category to which the term was assigned is added to the new "metaterms" field.

The CIOS will work to gradually re-keyword records created before the new process was launched and to enhance the ComAbstracts search interface to take full advantage of the metaterm information in searches.