computer science

Oxford Concordance Program

Oxford Concordance Program is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Oxford Concordance Program rather than just read about it. In short: The Oxford Concordance Program (OCP) was first released in 1981 and was a result of a project started in 1978 by Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS) to create a machine independent text analysis program for producing word lists, indices and concordances in a variety of languages and alphabets. In the 1980s it was claimed to have been licensed to around 240 institutions in 23 countries.

Key takeaways

Oxford Concordance Program belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Oxford Concordance Program to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Oxford Concordance Program from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Oxford Concordance Program (OCP) was first released in 1981 and was a result of a project started in 1978 by Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS) to create a machine independent text analysis program for producing word lists, indices and concordances in a variety of languages and alphabets. In the 1980s it was claimed to have been licensed to around 240 institutions in 23 countries.

History OCP was designed and written in FORTRAN by Susan Hockey and Ian Marriott of Oxford University Computing Services in the period 1979–1980 and its authors acknowledged that it owed much to the earlier COCOA and CLOC (University of Birmingham) concordance systems. During 1985–86 OCP was completely rewritten as version 2 to increase the efficiency of the program, a version was also produced for the IBM PC called Micro-OCP.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Oxford Concordance Program

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Oxford Concordance Program claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Oxford Concordance Program before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Oxford Concordance Program ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Oxford Concordance Program

In research: Oxford Concordance Program appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Oxford Concordance Program in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Oxford Concordance Program is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Digital humanities, History of software, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Oxford Concordance Program outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Oxford Concordance Program in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Oxford Concordance Program means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Oxford Concordance Program out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Oxford Concordance Program in simple terms?

Why does Oxford Concordance Program matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Oxford Concordance Program?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Oxford Concordance Program.