StrategiesTaxonomy
May 15, 2019 Copyright 2019 Taxonomy Strategies LLC and Semantic Staffing. All rights reserved.
semantic STAFFING
Taxonomy and Knowledge Management
Joseph Busch, Principal Consultant
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Agenda
❖ Use Case: Aligning Our Stuff
❖ Taxonomy and Faceted Search
❖ Knowledge Organization vs Knowledge Management Governance
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Taxonomy creates order, makes sense of things…
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…which can be especially helpful in times of change
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Work evolves over time
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Discovering the taxonomy lens…
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… Discovering the taxonomy lens
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Through a small victory, expanding the view…
Taxonomy Strategies The business of organized information Semantic STAFFING Experts placing experts 10
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Why create a taxonomy? 6 value propositions
❖ Improve search
❖ Be responsive to information
requests
❖ Provide capability to measure
results
❖ Mitigate risks
❖ Facilitate complete and consistent
content tagging
❖ Enable oversight, monitoring and
improvement
❖ …
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Agenda
❖ Use Case: Aligning Our Stuff
❖ Taxonomy & Faceted Search
❖ Knowledge Organization vs Knowledge Management Governance
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What is a taxonomy?
❖ A taxonomy is a particular form of controlled vocabulary in which the labels are organized
according to a hierarchy.
Fiction Non-
Fiction
Biography History …Politics
By region By Period
… …
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Multiple classifications problem
❖ There is no single or best way to classify things; what’s best varies across individuals,
cultures, depends on purpose and context.
Master hierarchy
Derivative hierarchies – SubsetsDerivative hierarchies –
Alternative views
Facets & relationships
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What are taxonomy facets
❖ Faceted taxonomy is a classification
approach for identifying a set of discrete
smaller taxonomies called facets that can be
combined to express the characteristics of
or context for a category.
❖ Busch’s golden law of facets: “Four facets of
10 nodes each have the same discriminatory
power as one taxonomy of 10,000 nodes.” –
Steve Papas, Endeca founder
Key Ingredient
Apple
Artichoke
Asparagus
Beef
Berry
Cabbage
Carrot
Cheese
Cherry
Chicken
…
Cooking Method
Air Fried
Baked
Barbecued
Cured
Deep Fried
Fermented
Grilled
Pan Fried
Pickled
Planked
…
Cuisine
Asian
Cajun
German
Greek
Indian
Irish
Italian
Mexican
Thai
Meal Part
Appetizers/
Starters
Beverages
Condiments
Desserts
Side Dishes
Entrées
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What are taxonomy facets
❖ Faceted taxonomy is a classification
approach for identifying a set of discrete
smaller taxonomies called facets that can be
combined to express the characteristics of
or context for a category.
❖ Busch’s golden law of facets: “Four facets of
10 nodes each have the same discriminatory
power as one taxonomy of 10,000 nodes.” –
Steve Papas, Endeca founder
FAQs
Forms &
Applications
News &
Announcements
Policies &
Procedures
Publications
Presentations
Regulated Product
Information
Reports
Tools & Databases
Transcripts &
Statements
Content Types
Children’s Health
Food Safety
Health Advisories
Health Effects
Health Risks
Occupational
Health
Pesticide Effects
Seniors' Health
Sun Protection
Toxicity
Health Topics
Agriculture
Automobile Repair
Chemical
Construction
Dry Cleaning
Electronics &
Computer
Energy
Extractive
Food Processing
Leather Tanning &
Finishing
Industries
Allergens
Biological
Contaminants
Carcinogens
Chemicals
Explosives
Liquid Waste
Microorganisms
Ozone
Pesticides
Radioactive Waste
Substances
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Origins of faceted classification
❖ Mathematician/librarian S.R. Ranganathan (1920s)
❖ Developed as an alternative to Dewey Decimal System for books.
❖ “Colon Classification” facets
1) Personality – topic or orientation
2) Matter – things or materials
3) Energy – actions
4) Space – places or locations
5) Time – times or time periods
S.R. Ranganathan. Painting by A. Ramakrishna, Art
teacher, K.V. No. 2, Vijayawada
(http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/01548/1
2isbs-ranga_G4_12_1548490e.jpg)
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Facet design best practices
❖ Number of facets: 4-8, with 5-6 as ideal
❖ Facets listed in logical, not alphabetical order
❖ Number of terms per facet: 2-25
▪ Ideally not much more than can be viewed in a scroll box
▪ If the list is obvious (US states), then up to 50 is OK.
❖ If <12 terms, then a logical display order, >12 then alphabetical
❖ A two-level hierarchy (indented) within a facet is possible
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What does taxonomy do for search?
Function Description
Related search Query corrections … did you mean?
Concept search Query expansion with synonyms, abbreviations, acronyms, etc.
… do you also want?
Ontology-based search Query expansion with narrower or broader terms; scoping exhaustive
search results
Faceted search Dynamic filtering of search results; online shopping
Clustering Dynamically bucketing search results into pre-defined categories
Subscriptions RSS feeds, alerts, SDI (selective dissemination of information), etc.
Personalization Weighting search results based on explicit profiles and implicit data
(where you’ve been and what you’ve done)
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Agenda
❖ Use Case: Aligning Our Stuff
❖ Taxonomy & Faceted Search
❖ Knowledge Organization vs Knowledge Management Governance
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Knowledge Management
❖Manage information and other forms
of knowledge as strategic resources
and encourage sharing of
knowledge.
❖… is concerned primarily with
curation of assets for sharing and
application of knowledge.
KO vs. KM
Knowledge Organization
❖Organize information in business
applications using processes that
produce useful and accurate
categories of information.
❖… is concerned primarily with
categorization of assets for access
and discovery.
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KO → KM
You can’t have KM without first having KO, i.e., you’ve got to have stuff to
share, and a means to describe and organise it, before you can share it.
But, KM provides new requirements for context and focus of KO – the two
activities impact and inform each other.
Knowledge ManagementKnowledge Organization
Maturity
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4 pillars of governance
Ro
les
& R
esp
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sib
iliti
es
Po
licie
s &
Pro
ced
ure
s
Co
mm
un
icat
ion
s
Val
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Sta
tem
en
t
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KO Governance
Pillars Objectives
Value Statement o Improve search.
o Be responsive to target audiences.
o Provide capability to measure results.
o Mitigate risks.
o Facilitate complete and consistent content tagging.
o Enable taxonomy oversight, monitoring and improvement.
Roles & Responsibilities o Decide what metadata fields should be required to tag content.
o Decide whether or not a controlled vocabulary is required for a metadata
field, and what vocabulary should be used.
o Decide the source for a controlled vocabulary and how should it be
validated.
Policies & Procedures o Define the process to add, edit or delete metadata fields or controlled
vocabulary terms.
o Define the editorial guidelines on how to form labels.
Communications o Explain the process to request a change.
o Explain governance roles and responsibilities, including overall goals of the
KO strategy, and decision-making process.
o Present the value of KO in a meaningful and concise manner.
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KM Governance
Pillars Objectives
Value Statement o Promote and share key organizational learnings.
o Improve individual and organizational performance.
o Provide for measurement and accountability for results.
o Obtain competitive advantage.
o Mitigate risks.
o Promote innovation.
Roles & Responsibilities o Decide the criteria for new KM applications and services.
o Decide the criteria for assets to include in KM applications and services.
o Decide the criteria to evaluate KM applications and services.
Policies & Procedures o Define the process to add, evaluate and improve KM applications and
services.
o Define the process to add, edit and delete assets from KM applications and
services.
Communications o Explain the process to build, evaluate and improve KM applications and
services.
o Explain governance roles and responsibilities, including overall goals of the
KM strategy, and decision-making process.
o Present the value of KM in a meaningful and concise manner.
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Summary
❖ KO governance is focused on metadata fields and values, and how to obtain complete and
consistent tagging of assets.
❖ KM governance is focused on curation of assets, and how to obtain organizational value from
them so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
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QuestionsJoseph Busch
[email protected] or [email protected]
@joebusch
Taxonomy Strategies
5253 Nebraska Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20015
mobile +1 415-377-7912
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Taxonomy and Knowledge Management – Abstract
❖ What are the key components of taxonomy? Knowledge organization underpins knowledge
management with an array of taxonomy tools and processes, and the more that you
understand it, the greater the opportunity for knowledge management success. This session
will be an overview of taxonomy—how taxonomy works and the problems it solves. We’ll talk
about taxonomy standards, common taxonomy components, taxonomy governance, and how
taxonomy enables knowledge management. Finally, we’ll look at examples of taxonomy in
different types of organizations.
