Introduction

• Margaret Hanley• Business Analyst/Senior Information Architect

BBC• Worked on three continents – Australia, USA

and UK• Been both a consultant and internal staff to

companies like Sensis (Yellow Pages in Australia), Argus Associates (US), Ingenta (UK and BBC (UK)

CVs and Metadata

• Exercise

• Definition, types, and uses

• Controlled vocabularies and thesauri

• How to create them

Metadata exercise

• Take a paper bag from the back of room

• Each bag will have sheet of paper and a goodie

• Two colours of sheets of papers – organise yourselves into groups of 5 with the same colour sheet

Metadata:what is metadata?

• Data about data

• Information which describes a document, a file or a CD

• Common metadata– CD information: title, composer, artist, date– MS Word document properties: time last

saved, company, author

Metadata:metadata on the Web

• Used in the header portion of an html document– Common schemes on the web: Dublin Core,

RDF and TopicMaps

• In databases to describe chunks of information to create pages

Metadata:types

• Intrinsic: metadata that the file holds about itself (e.g., file name or size)

• Descriptive: metadata that describes the file (e.g., subject, title, or audience)

• Administrative: metadata used to manage the file (e.g., time last saved, review date, author)

Metadata:uses

• Search: can limit the search to a part of the metadata, like title or keyword

• Browse: create topical indexes by aggregating pages with the same metadata

• Personalization and customization: show content to an employee based on their role or position in the company, e.g. engineer or manager

Metadata:controlled vocabularies

• To do this, the metadata needs to be the same or at least be related to each other

• A controlled vocabulary allows a defined set of words to be used to describe content, therefore allowing the content to be related together

Metadata:what is vocabulary control?

• Controlled Vocabulary – A list of preferred and variant terms– A subset of natural languagePreferred

Variants Authority

AZ Ariz, Arizona, 85XXX

US Postal Service

IBM Intl Bus Machines, Big Blue

NY Stock Exchange

Nyctalopia Night blindnessMoon blindness

National Library of Medicine

Metadata:why control vocabulary? 1/2

• Language is Ambiguous– Synonyms, homonyms, antonyms, contronyms, etc.

• In the Oxford English Dictionary:– “Round” takes 7 ½ pages or 15,000 words to define.– “Set” has 58 uses as a noun, 126 as a verb, 10 as an

adjective.The Mother Tongue:

English & How It Got That Way

by Bill Bryson

Metadata:why control vocabulary? 2/2

Users

Documents and Applications

Communication Chasm

ExamplePersonal Digital Assistant

SynonymsHandheld Computer

"Alternate" SpellingsPersenal Digitel Asistent

Abbreviations / AcronymsPDA

Broader TermsWireless, Computers

Narrower TermsPalmPilot, PocketPC

Related TermsWindowsCE, Cell Phones

…so your users don’t have to!

Metadata:semantic relationships

Three types1. Equivalence

2. Hierarchical

3. Associative

(Preferred)Train

(Related)Bus

(Narrower)Steamengine

(Broader)Transport

(Variant)Locomotive

(Related)Tram

(Variant)Choo choo

1

3

2

Metadata:levels of control

Simple Complex

SynonymRings

AuthorityFiles

ThesauriClassificationSchemes

Equivalence Hierarchical Associative

(Vocabularies)

(Relationships)

Metadata:what is a thesaurus?

Traditional use– Dictionary of synonyms (Roget’s)– From one word to many words

Information retrieval context– A controlled vocabulary in which equivalence,

hierarchical, and associative relationships are identified for purposes of improved retrieval

– Many words to one concept

Metadata:thesaurus terminology

• Preferred terms (UF subject headings, descriptors)– SN Scope Notes– UF Used For– BT Broader Term– NT Narrower Term– RT Related Terms (“See Also”)

• Variant terms (UF non-preferred, entry terms)– USE (“See”)

Metadata:types of thesauri

Used in Indexing

No Yes

No

Yes

Used inSearching

NaturalLanguage

IndexingThesaurus

ClassicThesaurus

SearchingThesaurus

Metadata:visibility

• Classic Use– Both indexers and searchers explicitly map

natural language terms onto controlled vocabularies

• Web Environment– Able to choose level of visibility (implicit use,

thesaural browsers)– Opportunity to educate users (terminology,

associative learning)

Metadata:niche applications

Product Catalog: multipleviews enabled by thesaurus

Technical Support Database:entry vocabulary mapsproblems to solutions

Searching Thesaurus:implicit term explosionmanages synonyms

(hypothetical example)

Metadata:controlled vocabulary statistics

• Principle of unlimited aliasing: by leveraging synonyms, recall went from 20% to 80% (in a small collection).

The Trouble with ComputersResearch study at Bellcore (Furnas et al. 1987)

• “The findings indicate that a hypertext index with multiple access points for each concept…led to greater effectiveness and efficiency of retrieval on almost all measures.”

•

A Usability Assessment of Online Indexing Structures By Carol A. Hert, Elin K. Jacob, and Patrick Dawson

Journal of the American Society for Information Science (September 2000)

Metadata: Creating CVs

• Understand your content (content audits and inventories)

• Understand your business requirements

• Understand what users are looking for

• Decide on the ways the metadata will be used in the organisation

Metadata: defining the fields

• By understanding the content, users and context, you should be getting an idea of the ways to describe content to make it – more accessible for users– able to connect to other content– meet the business needs

• The fields will reflect this

Metadata:the fields

• Say you decided on– Product name (because the users kept

searching for it)– Subject (to links content together)– Audience (because the business wanted to

target specific audiences)

Metadata:Use existing CVs 1/2

• Identify any CVs that exist within the organisation

• Identify any CVs that exist outside of the organisation that could be useful

• See if any will meet your needs with modification

• It is ALWAYS better to modify a CV than come up with it yourself

Metadata:Use existing CVs 2/2

• License the CVs with the ability to make changes – ensure that updates to the CV are included within the licensing fee

• Add more preferred terms, if the CV is incomplete for your collection

• Add more variant terms (your users’ and organisation’s words)

• Restructure (but only if necessary)

Metadata:Creating your own

• If no CVs exist, create your own

• Collect terms that could be used in the CV – from users, content and the business

• Identify CV structure from the terms collected

• Start to create

Metadata:Using it in your site

• Static HTML sites– In the header

• CMS – page based systems– In the header

• CMS – object based systems– With each object

• Databases– With each record

Metadata: Power in the site

• Ability to do contextual linking to web sites and applications

• Ability to find content

• Syndication

• Personalisation

• Recommendation engines

• Pervasive state for users across applications

Thank you

Questions or comments?

Margaret Hanley

mairead@yahoo.com