1. The development of Cascot: Computer Aided Structured Coding Tool
Rob Jones
Institute for Employment Research
University of Warwick
Introduction
Brief History
How & When I became involved.
(Started last sept.)

2. Project History Two programs Development Undertaken
Casoc (SOC 2000 coding)
Casic (SIC 92 coding)
Undocumented, monolithic, legacy dos code.
Development Undertaken
Testing framework
Modularisation (Object Orientation)
Integration of Casoc and Casic into one.
New GUI

3. Current Status Single program, “Cascot” Single scoring engine
Capable of SOC 2000 & SIC 92Coding
Any Classification.
Single scoring engine
Loadable classifications
Structure
Index
Rules
Optional interfaces: web page & desktop application.

4. Classification: Structure
Nature of the classification
Example. SOC 2000: 4 levels, Code & Title
1 Managers and Senior Officials
11 Corporate Managers
111 Corporate Managers And Senior Officials
1111 Senior officials in national government
1112 Directors and chief executives of major organisations
1113 Senior officials in local government
1114 Senior officials of special interest organisations
112 Production Managers
1121 Production, works and maintenance managers

5. Classification: Index
Series of texts associated with given codes.
2312 Teacher (educational establishments: college of education)
2312 Teacher (further education)
2312 Teacher (higher and further education)
2312 Teacher (tertiary college)
2312 Teacher, dance (further education)
2312 Teacher, music (further education)
2312 Teacher; head (educational establishments: further education
2312 Tutor (further education)
2312 Tutor (higher and further education)
2313 Adviser (education)

6. Classification: Rules
Abbreviations
Eg. deli = delicatessen
Misspellings
Eg. taylor = tailor
Thesaurus Alternatives
Eg. cook = (95%) chef
Default values
Eg. BUSINESS MANAGER = company manager
Non concluding text
Eg. Owner

7. Classification: Rules
Downgraded Words
Eg. Trainee, Assistant, Senior
Noise Words
Eg. and, of, with, in, at, the
Noise Phrases
Eg “My Mother is”

8. Principals of operation
Identify words.
Select all codes where those words are used.
Score all index entries in all those codes.
Score comprised of
Global component
Record component
2 way comparison (Text-2-Index & Index-2-Text)
Final Score (0-100) known as 'Certainty Score'
This is a simplified overview of the coding

9. Complexities of Scoring
Rules
Create alternatives.
Non concluding texts (in rules) => 39
Words are 'Pseudo Matched' before being searched for
Eg. miner matches mine, miner, mineral, minerals,mines
Final score adjusted by next closest score
The coding is infact a lot more complex that the previous overview might lead you to beleive.
Some of the complexities include

10. Automatic & Assisted Modes
File Input/Output
Threshold level = certainty score
Assisted mode
score < threshold : user prompted
Automatic mode
score < threshold : No code written
In addition to coding individual texts it is possible to run Cascot so as to block code files containing 1,000s of texts.
This can be done in two modes: .....
The difference is Automatic will do everything
..... Assisted will prompt when appropriate.

11. Performance Can be measured in many ways.
Speed, Throughput, Accuracy,
Speed: Approx 1,000 texts / minute.
Main Test Data
LFS 96/97
Total Records : 63251
Compared to manual coding.

12. Automatic text processing (SOC 2000): Throughput and error rates by certainty score

13. Automatic text processing (SIC 92) throughput and error rates by certainty score

14. The relationship between matching at SOC2000 unit group level and the certainty score
% matching at each value of certainty score
Certainty Score

15. Future Work Classification Editor Performance enhancements
Editing of rules
Editing of structure, index entries
Creation of new classifications
Performance enhancements
Integrated spell checker
Integration of SOC & SIC coding
(Output of SOC coding influenced by SIC code)

16. Cascot Demonstration Highlight sections of GUI show change SOC/SIC
enter some text,
results, highlight
show load DLHE

17. Cascot Website Cascot freely available over the web
Desktop version
(for high volume use)
coming soon.
Please register on the website.