Differentiating data- and text-mining terminology
Jan Hendrik Kroeze, Machdel C Matthee, Theo Bothma · 2003
When a new discipline emerges it usually takes some time and lots of academic discussion before concepts and terms get standardised. Such a new discipline is text mining. In a groundbreaking paper, Untangling text data mining, Hearst [1999] tackled the problem of clarifying text-mining concepts and terminology. This essay aims to build on Hearst’s ideas by pointing out some inconsistencies and suggesting an improved and extended categorisation of data- and text-mining techniques. The essay is a conceptual study. A short overview of the problems regarding text-mining concepts is given. This is followed by a summary and critical discussion of Hearst’s attempt to clarify the terminology. The essence of text mining is found to be the discovery or creation of new knowledge from a collection of documents. The parameters of non-novel, semi-novel and novel investigation are used to differentiate between full-text information retrieval, standard text mining and intelligent text mining. The same parameters are also used to differentiate between related processes for numerical data and text metadata. These distinctions may be used as a road map in the