iwmw 2004: taxonomy: the science of classification (b3)

Taxonomy: The Science of Classification

IWMW2004

Slide 1


- using the library as a metaphor to demystify the process of portal taxonomy development.

Taxonomy: The Science of ClassificationSlide 2

Why A Taxonomy?: Oracle

University Portal ~ Oracle10g AS Taxonomy: Oracle portal requirement

Perhaps most crucial component of the portal project

Taxonomy not understood: perception highly specialised technical mechanism Initial reaction buy in consultancy?

Misconception: Taxonomy silo Taxonomy only required for portal


Why A Taxonomy?: IssuesTaxonomy concepts not understood by

colleagues – “We need one, how to we design and build?”.

The late realisation that a taxonomy was required to service other institutional requirements like the FOI publication scheme and ‘Records Management’.

Folly to build taxonomy focusing on Oracle portal requirements – “What happens if we change our portal platform?”.


Our Backgrounds

Chris Milne, Academic Librarian Information Retrieval / Classic texts

Sayers, W. C. B. 1975. Sayers’ manual of classification for librarians. 5th ed. London: Deutsch

Rowley, J. E. 1987. Organising knowledge: an introduction to information retrieval. Aldershot: Gower.

Hunter, E. J. and Bakewell, K. G. B. 1983. Cataloguing. 2nd ed. London: Bingley.


Our Backgrounds

Dave MacCabe, IT Specialist User requirements analysis Business analysis Software development Web development Database design


Blended Approach

Taxonomy development at UAD will Use combination of Librarianship & IT

skills setsLibrarianship skills sets

Information retrieval: designed to support users information seeking behaviour

IT skills sets What can be achieved with technology?


Workshop OutlineGenerate a more rounded view,

clearer perspective of taxonomy development

Looking to share our experiences and gather the experiences of others

We don’t have all the answers!


x 2 Surveys to ascertain: Range of skills sets available to

portal / taxonomy teams Business drivers for developing /

deploying taxonomies x 2 Presentations

Taxonomy: theoretical background Information retrieval techniques

related to taxonomy development

Workshop Elements (1)


Workshop Elements (2)

x 3 Activities Discussion of survey results (x 2) Applying a taxonomy and meta-data

to fixed-term contract example materials

General / concluding discussion on project team skills sets and the use of Library staff


IWMW2004

Slide 10

Skill Sets:

Ourselves, our teams and our institutions.


Slide 11

Useful Questions?

What skills to we have?Do we think they are appropriate?What are the institutional

perceptions of the skills required?Is it a converged service project?Will the team be supplemented by

external consultancy?


IWMW2004

Slide 12

Presentation:

The theoretical background to taxonomies and metadata


Slide 13

Aim

To set the scene for the key activity, I’m going to try to sprint down the road from

basic theoretical constructs to a concrete portal example.


Slide 14

What is a Taxonomy ?A systematic way of classifying knowledgeA structure of concepts (hierarchical?)A common language for sharing knowledgeAn artificial, formal construct acting as a

symbolic model of an information domainExamples

Linnaeus’ plant taxonomyOrganic compounds


Slide 15

Dictionary Break

TAXONOMY“[Taxonomy is] the science of classification according to a

predetermined system used to provide a conceptual

framework for discussion, analysis or information

retrieval.”Ravid, Y. (2002)


Slide 16

Dictionary Break

ONTOLOGIESDescriptions of the meaning

and nature of things, a superset of taxonomies – “a

formal explicit specification of a shared conceptualization”

KNOWLEDGE MAPSUsed for knowledge representation – both visual

and conceptual


Slide 17

Why have a Taxonomy ?Essential for knowledge managementCoping with “infoglut”Faster information retrieval and improved

productivitySharing of knowledge and comparison of

knowledge basesand, of course, for us…

Content management for institutional portals


Slide 18

In fact …

“A good taxonomy helps to inject order into the chaos and anarchy of a typical intranet

or website.”


Slide 19

Organisational DriversThe costs, both financial and organizational,

of poor access to informationThe requirement for ‘regulatory’

compliance (for example Freedom of Information, Records Management)

The requirement to manage the organization effectively.

Higher levels of productivity in knowledge workers


Slide 20

In fact …

“[taxonomies are] a strategic imperative for any organization looking to manage and exploit

its knowledge more effectively”


Slide 21

Taxonomic Issues …

“Hierarchical”

“Key concepts”


Slide 22

The FOI Scheme: A Hierarchy

Class Groups

1. GOVERNANCE

2. FINANCIAL RESOURCES

3. HUMAN RESOURCES

4. PHYSICAL RESOURCES

5. STUDENT ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT6. INFORMATION SERVICES

7. TEACHING AND LEARNING

8. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

9. EXTERNAL RELATIONS

Class Group Class

1. GOVERNANCE 1.1 Legal Framework

1.2 Governance Structure

1.3 How the institution is organized

1.4 Information on the Institutional Context

1.5 Management Structure


Slide 23

Issues with Hierarchies

Hierarchy classification limitations Enforced Classification Scattering Matches “information seeking” behaviour?

Implicit navigation Drives development (e.g. Oracle “pages”, “tabs”) Matches “information seeking” behaviour?

Width .v. depth Seeking behaviour Don’t forget publishing behaviour!


Slide 24

General Issues

“Push” .v “Pull”. “Google thinking”.

Management by exception Role-specific delivery


Slide 25

Dictionary Break

METADATA“meta-data (or "meta data") Data aboutdata. In data processing, meta-data is definitional data that provides information about, or documentation of, other data managed within an application or environment.”The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2004 Denis Howe


Slide 26

Metadata & Key Words


Slide 27

Dictionary Break

THESAURUS“Labelling and relating objects

and groups of objects with appropriate words and concepts” as an aid to

“knowledge indexing and retrieval”


Slide 28

Student Coursework (1)


Slide 29

Student Coursework (2)


Slide 30

Key References ?

Many texts – very few offer any practical advice just theoretical perspectives on the knowledge management area.

Obtain practical advice from portal development environment documentation.

MUST READ – Wyllie, J and Skyrme, D. J. “Taxonomies: Frameworks for Corporate Knowledge”, London: Ark Group, 2003.


IWMW2004

Slide 31

Taxonomy Project Drivers:

Or, “What are we trying to achieve, and why?”


Slide 32

Useful Questions?Why do commercial organizations develop

taxonomies, and are there similarities are there with HE?

Who are the information consumers (students, staff, local business, general public, special interest bodies)?

What are the real information needs and how do they arise?

What technical infrastructure is being considered and/or used: does this place limitations on, or help the process of taxonomy development?


IWMW2004

Slide 33

Presentation:

Applying classification, cataloguing and indexing techniques to organise and retrieve information within portals


Slide 34

Aim

Provide a clearer perspective on the processes surrounding the development of a portal taxonomy, using the analogy of classification, cataloguing and indexing techniques as

deployed in libraries to manage information


Slide 35

The Problem

Taxonomy concepts initially not understood by colleagues We need one, how to we design and

build?Reference document outlining

“rules” for taxonomy development Use Oracle9iAS Portal as Your

Knowledge Exchange


Slide 36

Core Themes Identified

Primary Taxonomy: concerned with Visual presentation of information and services to

users Navigation Logical arrangement, two ‘primary’ concerns

How do we expect users to find, and retrieve information? How can the organisation of information, be designed in

such a way to support institutional objectives? e.g. developing deeper engagement with the University

Supermarket Taxonomy: designed to create zones, and protect goods


Slide 37


Virtual Taxonomy: concerned with Development of meta-data to support

retrieval via search-engine Building indexes, describing information and

services Creation of an alternative approach to

finding and retrieving information, not supported by any ‘natural’ limitations within the Primary Taxonomy


Slide 38


Imperative: develop an understanding of users information requirements and information seeking behaviour

How will people look for content? How will people use content to support their

jobs? How to people expect content to be organised

and described? What is the structure of the organisation?


Slide 39

Role of Organising Content?

Organising on-line information attributed to IT solutions Parallels with the role of a “Web Master” i.e.

technical skills setRole of Librarianship incorporating

“established” Information Retrieval techniques used for hundreds of years to organise the complexities of library collections worldwide frequently overlooked


Slide 40

Classic Information Retrieval

Faceted / Non-faceted ClassificationPre-coordinate & Post-coordinate IndexingCitation OrderPrinciple of InversionCataloguingThesauri / Subject HeadingsAutomatic Indexing

http://uexkull.p52s.hio.no/~teron/alpha.php3?teskode=LIS&spraak=eng&bokstav=p

http://uexkull.p52s.hio.no/~teron/alpha.php3?teskode=LIS&spraak=eng&bokstav=p


Slide 41

A Taster: Principle of Inversion

“In an analytico-synthetic classification, the implementation of the Principle of Increasing Concreteness requires that the facets in the facet formula of a basic class should be in the decreasing sequence of concreteness. If the scheme has rounds of facets, the facets in each round should be in the decreasing sequence of concreteness”S.R. Ranganathan's Prolegomena to Library Classification (2e) (1957).

http://www.miskatonic.org/library/prolegomena.html







Slide 42

Taxonomy & Information Retrieval Equivalents

Primary Taxonomy (equivalent to) Pre coordinated indexing Example: Dewey Decimal Classification

Within portal: Predefined grouping of content and services, users have a predefined path to follow to find and retrieve information by virtue of what clicks they have to make and [hypertext] links to follow


Slide 43

Taxonomy & Information Retrieval Equivalents

Virtual Taxonomy (equivalent to) Post coordinated indexing Example: Library Catalogue (OPAC not

card)

Within portal: User decides how to find and retrieve information via the selection of keywords and index terms, applied to a search engine


Slide 44

Example: Library Taxonomy

Primary Taxonomy (i.e. How users see / approach the physical library stock) Users approach Library stock via ‘collection’

Level 1 Short Loans Level 2 Reference Materials / Law Lending stock Level 3 Lending Stock Level 4 Journals

Each collection organised by subject, using Dewey Decimal Classification

Anticipates that users need to find materials based on subject, with related items being found together

Supports information retrieval by browsing


Slide 45

Characteristics: Primary Taxonomy

Supports users, logical subject approach to retrieving information

Organisation by Dewey Decimal Classification stable framework, adaptable for new subject areas e.g. Computer Games


Slide 46

Limitations: Primary Taxonomy

ScatteringClassified works can only appear in one

place within a library Works organised by citation order

i.e. order in which the various facets are presented in a compound subject

Medium – Period – Style - Country Leads to scattering works of related subject

In this example items on Country will be scattered throughout the collection


Slide 47

Primary Taxonomy Will

Influence the physical design of the Portal Pages / Sub Pages, Regions and Tabs

are the tools available in Oracle 10G to underpin a Primary Taxonomy

Virtual Taxonomies can be implemented to support user requirements not provided for in the Primary Taxonomy


Slide 48

More than One Taxonomy?

Library restricted to a single Primary Taxonomy due to nature of physical stock

Electronic environment, Portal will support multiple taxonomies This could depend on the user entering

the Portal e.g. different view for member of academic staff, student, support staff


Slide 49

Example: Library Taxonomy

Library Catalogue (OPAC) (Virtual Taxonomy) Supports alternative means of accessing materials

in an attempt to overcome the limitations of the Primary Taxonomy i.e. search by: Author(s) Subject heading(s)

Various facets that each item represents can be included, whereas the Primary Taxonomy (Dewey classification) centres on primary subject area

Title Series


Slide 50

Catalogue Search Indexes

Randle, Kevin D.UFO crash at Roswell / -- New York : Avon 1998.

328p. ; 19cm ISBN 03807-619-6-3 (pbk) : £6.99 : CIP entry (Jun.) Unidentified flying objects.Unidentified flying objects

- Sighting and encounters - New Mexico -Roswell.Unidentified flying objects - Censorship -

United States. I. Schmitt, Donald R. II. Title.


Slide 51

Virtual Taxonomy ~ Catalogue

Meta-data equates to the Subject, Author, Title, Series entries used within a library catalogues

Controlled search terms (vocabulary) to improve recall E-commerce see Electronic Commerce

Alternative retrieval mechanism aiming to overcome limitations of classification scheme employed e.g. Author search


Slide 52

Virtual Taxonomy

Meta-data Describing portal content via:

Attributes Categories Perspectives

Creating indexes for search engines in Oracle 10G, providing an alternative ‘virtual’ taxonomy to supplement the ‘primary’ taxonomy

Again, similar concept to the Library catalogue


Slide 53

Taxonomy Design / Content Analysis

Anticipated user behaviour i.e. who will use the Portal and how will people expect to find and use the Portal’s information and services

This can be identified via “content analysis” e.g. how will students expect to find a past paper?

If students cannot ‘click’ their way to a past paper, how can the Virtual taxonomy be used to quickly, efficiently, intuitively provide the desired information?


Slide 54

Taxonomy Design / Content Analysis

Is your Taxonomy required to support other institutional objectives e.g. FOI, Records Management?

How will this effect index design & construction i.e. selection of meta-data? Index under document type related to FOI

publication scheme?


Slide 55

Suggested Steps: Designing UAD Portal

TaxonomyWhat do we need to organise?

What is going into the Portal Content / Document Analysis FOI / Records Management functionality!

Decide how best to organise material Organisation will support design objective i.e.

deepening student engagement with the University

Efficient information retrieval(Logical groupings)


Slide 56

Suggested Steps: Designing UAD Portal

TaxonomyIdentify gaps in the Primary Taxonomy

Starting point to think about best approach to designing the Virtual Taxonomy to support alternative paths for our users Primary Taxonomy will scatter documents and

services, how will your meta-data / search engine approach bridge these problems

External examiners reports may be organised in the Primary Taxonomy by School

Other users may wish to see all these reports as a single group

Meta-data element “document type” to support retrieval of all external examiner reports


Slide 57

Conclusions

Information retrieval techniques developed to organise complexities of human knowledge

Techniques applied to libraries and specialised collections remain valid and can be successfully applied to organise knowledge within portals


Slide 58

Taxonomy: the Science of Classification

Opportunity to bring together the combined skills sets of ‘Information Professionals’

and ‘Web developers’ to develop a relatively

inexpensive ‘in-house’ solution to taxonomy

development, minimising the requirement to draw upon

external consultancy.


IWMW2004

Slide 59

Skill Sets:

Can “traditional” information retrieval skills-sets be usefully applied to support taxonomy creation?


Slide 60

Useful Questions?

Have you previously considered using librarians to support portal / taxonomy development?

If not, would you now consider using librarians to support portal / taxonomy?

Do “today’s” librarians retain these “classic” information retrieval skills?


IWMW2004

Slide 61

Key Activity:

- Applying meta-data and recognising relevant information consumers


Slide 62

Activity Topic

Deliberately “left field” so we can focus on the process rather than the information itself.

The use of fixed-term employment contracts in higher education institutions.


Slide 63

Activity Organization

Part 1 – Technical Briefing

Part 2 – Background Information

Part 3 – Applying a taxonomy and meta-data


Slide 64






Slide 65

Part 1 – Technical BriefingFollowing on from the mini-talks already

delivered, I want to pose a series of questions that we need to address in Part 3 of this activity.

Useful to have these questions in mind during the background details that follow.

Actually a good, “real world” example but only because you’ll need to get involved in minutiae across the institution.


Slide 66

Regulatory Compliance

the Freedom of Information Act

the Data Protection Act

the Disability Discrimination Act?

How do we manage compliance with :-


Slide 67

Internal Information Consumers

Who needs this content?How will they use it?How should it be delivered (”push” .v.”pull”)?How do these information consumers look for

information?How should you best organize content to

meet user requirements and institutional objectives?


Slide 68

External Information Consumers

Who will search for this content?How will they use it?How do these information seekers

look for information?What will be the context of the

search and what constitutes related content?


Slide 69

Information Lifecycle

How frequently do you anticipate it will change?

How can we ensure appropriate classification of updates?

How should the updated information be delivered to internal and external seekers?


Slide 70

Finally, the content…

Our example is the use of fixed-term employment contracts.

Chris will now provide the relevant background on this topic.


IWMW2004

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Key Activity:



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Activity Topic




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Slide 75

Background

Significant concern as to the high degree of use of FTCs within HE (40%) Sector Reviews of HE (Dearing, Bett) Funding Councils Trade Unions

HEIs instructed to reduce reliance of FTCs


Slide 76

Legislation / Guidance

EC Fixed-term Work Directive 1999/70/EC

UK SI: 2002 no 2034JNCHES Guidance

Agreed standard between University employers association and recognised trade unions as to use and management of FTCs within HE


Slide 77

Issues

Clear evidence to suggest that HEIs remain heavily reliant on use of FTCs

Introduction of legislation, JNCHES guidelines and pressure from funding councils has not led to any significant reduction in use

Culture of over dependence Contract research funding Blunt tool to avoid performance management


Slide 78

Information

Typically HEIs require to improve information flow re FTCs to improve Awareness of obligations as employers / managers Ensure employees aware of the protection now

afforded to them under law Remove culture of dependence Monitor use Demonstrate ethical HR policies to funding council


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Key Activity:



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Activity Topic




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Slide 83

Part 3 – Applying a Taxonomy

Group discussion.


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Slide 84

Final Discussion:

Project team skill sets and the use of library staff.


Slide 85

Learning Outcomes

A clearer perspective on the processes surrounding the development of a portal taxonomy, using the analogy of classification, cataloguing and indexing techniques as deployed in libraries to manage information

A realisation that the combined skills sets of 'information professionals' and 'Web developers' can be brought together to develop a relatively inexpensive 'in-house' solution to taxonomy development minimising the requirement to draw upon external consultancy


Slide 86

Useful Questions?

Are we happy with the vocabulary surrounding taxonomies and portals?

Are there key references?Do we have the appropriate skill sets

available already in the information management professions in our institution?

iwmw 2004: taxonomy: the science of classification (b3)

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