AIIM ECM Certificate programme

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Taxonomy

Enterprise Content

Management (ECM)

ECM ECM ECM Case Study

AIIM ECM Certificate programme

ECM Strategy ECM Practitioner ECM Specialist Case Study 2

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ECM Practitioner Course Outline

Foundations Tools & Instruments

1. Introduction 2. Technologies & Functionality 4. Create & Capture 5. Metadata 7. Security & Control 10. Delivery & Presentation 8. Process & Automation 11. Trends & Directions Futures 3 3. Information Architecture 9. Findability 6. Taxonomy

Agenda

Defining taxonomies and classification

Subject-based classification

Taxonomies

Folksonomies

Ontologies

Thesaurus and Semantic networks

Business case for classification

4

Standards and guidelines

Classification challenges

(3)

Agenda

Subject-based classification

Taxonomies

Folksonomies Ontologies

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Defining taxonomy (1)

Taxonomy is the science of classifying information

A taxonomy is a law for classifying information

Taxonomies are nearly ubiquitous, but poorly

understood

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Source: Dictionary.com

(4)

Defining taxonomy (2)

“In recent years, the business world has fallen in love

with the term ‘taxonomies’. We use it specifically to refer

with the term taxonomies . We use it specifically to refer

to a hierarchical arrangement of categories within the

user interface of a website or intranet.”

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Source: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, 2002)

AIIM website

(5)

Understanding taxonomies

A taxonomy is a classification scheme

Such as the way that an individual classifies the content of their e mail

Such as the way that an individual classifies the content of their e-mail inbox, a personal CD collection, or the contents on an iPod

A taxonomy is a knowledge map

Reflects how it’s owner conceives a given body of content (a knowledge domain), for purposes of browsing, navigating, discovering, and sharing that information

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A taxonomy is semantic

Indicating the relationships between concepts, such as the relationships between a car and a steering wheel, in that the steering wheel is a “part of” a car

Source: Organising Knowledge (Patrick Lambe, 2007)

Category perspectives

Business function

Geo-political

Company focus vs. industry focus

Product or service

Business issues, conditions, events

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Type/Source of content

(6)

Representations of taxonomies (1)

Lists

Trees

Hierarchies

Polyhierarchies

Matrices

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Facets

System Maps

Representations of taxonomies (2)

Lists

Simple collection of related

Simple collection of related things. The relationship is defined by the purpose of the list.

Good when domain is simple, amount of content is small. Basic building blocks of all other taxonomical representations

Examples: Country codes types

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Examples: Country codes, types of diseases

Source: Organising Knowledge (Patrick Lambe, 2007) Source: Wikipedia

(7)

Representations of taxonomies (3)

Trees

Represents a transition from

Represents a transition from general to more specific relationships or whole to part.

Good when a list gets to be too long, and “naturally” breaks into subcategories.

Examples: Yellow pages (phone directories)

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directories)

Source: Organising Knowledge (Patrick Lambe, 2007) Source: CoreFiling.com

Representations of taxonomies (4)

Hierarchies

A specific tree structure that has

A specific tree structure that has inclusiveness, consistency, and maintains the same “type” of relationship at each level. The “child” inherits all of the

characteristics of the “parent” and each child can only belong in one place in the taxonomy

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Works best with mature, formal, logical schemes

Examples: Military rank, Biological, Family Genealogy

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Representations of taxonomies (5)

Polyhierarchies

Used when an item belongs in

Used when an item belongs in more than one place in the real world, and multiple organising principles are required. Provides “virtual linking” between

hierarchies.

Example: a single collection of content concerning diseases can

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content concerning diseases can be organised/taxonomised via affected body part and causes

Source: Organising Knowledge (Patrick Lambe, 2007) Source: Rosenfeld, Morville (2006)

Representations of taxonomies (6)

Matrices

Provides a 2 or 3 dimensional

Provides a 2 or 3-dimensional cross linking of taxonomies, and an ability to provide differing views into the same body of content.

Example: The same content could be located based on project manager, project initiation, and/or

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manager, project initiation, and/or affected standards

(9)

Representations of taxonomies (6)

Facets

A multi dimensional taxonomy

A multi-dimensional taxonomy comprised of multiple tags, each tag representing an individual taxonomy, thus the content is categorised in multiple ways, within a single interface.

Example: selecting wines based on characteristics such as type,

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on characteristics such as type, price, varietals, regions,

appellations, and price.

Source: Organising Knowledge (Patrick Lambe, 2007) Source: wine.com

Representations of taxonomies (7)

System maps

Visual representations of a

Visual representations of a domain of knowledge

Labelled representing taxonomy categories

Example: A collection of medical content relating to the human nervous system is accessible via a diagram of the human body

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a diagram of the human body. Each component of that system is illustrated in context, and labelled appropriately.

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Defining classification

Classification:

“The systematic identification and arrangement of

business activities and/or records into categories

according to logically structured conventions,

methods and procedural rules represented in a

classification system”

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Source: ISO 15489

What is classification?

In simple terms, it’s just grouping information together

Common examples of classification:

Cars

by make, model, performance

Food

tinned/fresh, type (meat, vegetable, grain)

TV programmes

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p g

comedy, thriller, quiz show

Clothes

adult/child, expensive/cheap, winter/summer

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Dewey Decimal system

Used to classify information

throughout the western

Dewey Decimal system

000 General & Bibliography

throughout the western

world

Very Euro-centric

000 General & Bibliography

100 Philosophy & Psychology

200 Religion

300 Social Science

400 Languages & Linguistics

500 Sciences

600 Technology

800 Literature

900 Geography & History

Chinese library classification

43,600 categories. Constantly expanding to meet the

needs of a rapidly changing nation

1) Marxism, Leninism, Maoism & Deng Xiaoping Theory 2) Philosophy and Religion 3) Social Sciences 4) Politics and Law 5) Military Science 6) Economics

12) Natural Science

13) Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry

14) Astronomy and Geoscience 15) Life Sciences

16) Medicine and Health Sciences 17) Agricultural Sciences

Political considerations drive some organisation

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6) Economics

7) Culture, Science, Education, and Sports

8) Languages and Linguistics 9) Literature

10) Art

11) History and Geography

17) Agricultural Sciences 18) Industrial Technology 19) Transportation

20) Aviation and Aerospace 21) Environmental Science

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US Library of Congress

Used to categorise books published in the United States

Expanded categories emphasise USA-specific history

and interests

A) General Works

B) Philosophy, Psychology, Religion C) History: Auxiliary Sciences D) History: General and Old World E) History: United States

F) History: Western Hemisphere

L) Music M) Fine Arts

N) Literature & Languages O) Science P) Medicine Q) Agriculture 23 G) Geography, Anthropology, Recreation H) Social Science I) Political Science J) Law K) Education R) Technology S) Military Science T) Naval Science

U) Bibliography & Library Science

What are classification schemes?

A classification scheme…

Is the structure an organisation uses for organising

Is the structure an organisation uses for organising, accessing/retrieving, storing and managing its information

Can be used to classify records

A Business Classification Scheme (BCS) is a

classification scheme based on an organisation’s

business functions and activities

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These are predominately used for Records Management purposes

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Classification schemes: Types

Keyword /

Deployment

P

_{Hierarchical /} thesaurus-based Functional Subject / thematic

P

rinciples of

clas

s

Generally preferred tree style 25

s

ification

Organisational

Hierarchical / tree style BCSs: Key

CLASS

C

FILE

RECORD

F R 26

DOCUMENT

D

(14)

Schematic example: Hierarchical / tree BCS

C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C 27 F F F F F F F F

Populated example: Hierarchical / tree BCS

Innovation, Knowledge Transfer and Technical Infrastructure (super ( p function)

Innovation (function)

Knowledge Transfer (function)

Technical Infrastructure (function)

Standards and Accreditation (sub

function)

Policy Management (activity)

Super Function

Function Function Sub

Function FunctionSub FunctionSub

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Activity Activity Activity Activity

Infrastructure Support (activity)

National Measurement System

(sub function)

Policy Management (activity)

Civil Space Activity (sub function)

Space Regulation (activity)

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Agenda

Taxonomies

Folksonomies

Ontologies

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Toward subject-based classification

It’s often valuable to create multiple classifications

Users: Intended audience

Content: Inherent subject matter

Context: Temporal, organisational or political drivers

User-understood terms are critical

Especially important for e-commerce

People search Google for “cheap flights” 75x th “l f ” (S G M G )

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Source: Louis Rosenfeld LLC

more than “low fares” (Source: Gerry McGovern)

Who are the users? Scientists? Consumers?

Context matters

Why this user with this content?

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Taxonomies in context

Source: Yahoo!

Hierarchies as implicit semantics

Divides information space into categories &

subcategories, relating broader & narrower concepts via

parent-child relationship

Generic = Class-species: Species B (crow) is a member of Class A (Bird) & inherits characteristics of its parent}

Whole-Part = B is a part of A (i.e., Index Finger is part of Hand)

Instance = B is an instance of A (i.e., Indian Ocean is an Ocean)

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A A

B B

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Differing views

Simple truth: People see (and label!) the world

differently…

Sand trap, or bunker?

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Sand trap, or bunker?

Personal taxonomy

• Personal classification of information • E-mail folders -- most common

manifestation manifestation

• Can improve relevance and findability to an individual

– Some approaches enable personal classification in addition to “authorised” taxonomy

– Gmail and some other systems employ faceted classification as well

• From enterprise perspective, personal taxonomies can be quite problematic

No interoperabilit ling istic chaos

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– No interoperability, linguistic chaos – Impossible to establish enterprise-wide

standards and vocabularies

• When combined with peers, can become a “folksonomy”

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Folksonomy

Collaborative tagging of content with minimal controls

Relevance between metadata and content may be

determined by users in a democratic fashion

Clusters emerge and communities typically self-organise

around them (“Wisdom of the crowd”)

Typically arise in Web-based communities where

i di id

l

h

t

t th

t

d

t

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individuals share content, then create and use tags

Best used when there is a critical mass of taggers

Can be a useful “bottom-up” approach to developing taxonomies

Folksonomy example

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Source: flickr.com

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What is an ontology?

Explicit specification or conceptualisation of a domain

Often subsume thesauri, but employ richer semantic relationshipsOften subsume thesauri, but employ richer semantic relationships

among terms and attributes

Apply rigid rules specifying terms and relationships

Do more than just control vocabulary; are a knowledge representation

Semantic technologies are typically centered around

ontologies

An ontology for salad would contain the structure for

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An ontology for salad would contain the structure for

how it relates to everything, from ingredients to growers

to the rodents that might eat it, and how a salad is

different in Japan vs. Italy

Why develop an ontology?

To improve knowledge sharing and reuse, and make

software more adaptable to an environment

Share common understanding of the structure of information among people or software agents

Enable reuse of domain knowledge

Make domain assumptions explicit

Separate domain knowledge from operational knowledge

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Analyse domain knowledge

Source: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/contentnr/introsemantics

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The challenge of meaning

Meaning is a hard problem for machines and humans alike Same term can have multiple meaningsSame term can have multiple meanings

Multiple terms can have the same meaning

Ultimately meaning is contextual

Dublin Core designed to disambiguate at a fundamental level

E.g., distinguishes definitively among “Creator” and “Contributor,” and

“Publisher”

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But in the wild, it is much harder to achieve semantic agreement

Controlled vocabularies

Supporting tools based on collections of terms used to

tag, track and describe content

For example, users may wish to organise content

according to

business sector geographical location product type 40 organisation type policy topic

Allow content to be described using only 'official terms'

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Controlled vocabularies: Types

Simple lists

Lists of terms allowed to be used to describe an information resource

Synonym rings

A 'ring' of connected terms, all treated as equivalent for searching

Synonym rings can be used to link acronyms, variant spellings or scientific / popular terms

Thesaurus

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Thesaurus

Hierarchical arrangement of broader and narrower meanings

Simple lists and synonym rings

Simple list of bovine diseases

Anaplasmosis

Babesiosis

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)

Cysticercosis

Synonym ring for a BSE

BSE Mad cows’ disease Bovine spongiform encephalopathy 42 Prion disease

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Thesaurus

A networked collection of controlled vocabulary terms,

using associative relationships

Used to manage and identify the relationships among and between terms

E.g. Equal to, Related to, Opposite of

Some examples from a hypothetical domain

Lettuce = Frisée (a.k.a, ‘a synonym ring’)

Lettuce is a narrower type of Greens

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Coriander is related to Cilantro; but they are not equal

Useful to reconcile different lexicons across business

units or functional groups

Sample thesaurus

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Ontologies and taxonomies and thesauri

How does this relate to Taxonomies and Thesauri?

“We have all agreed to call this thing lettuce Lettuce is a vegetable ”

We have all agreed to call this thing lettuce. Lettuce is a vegetable.

There is a much larger potential pool of semantic

information that a taxonomy may or may not contain:

“Lettuce grows in the ground. Rabbits are a hazard to lettuce growers.

Tomatoes and cucumbers are often eaten with lettuce, and the three of these things together make what is called a salad. But, a salad is not only defined by the collection of these three things in Japan a mixture

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only defined by the collection of these three things…in Japan, a mixture of seaweed and sesame seeds is a salad. In the Midwestern United States, a collection of Jell-O and radishes is called a salad, and there is no lettuce involved.”

Agenda

Taxonomies Folksonomies Ontologies

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Benefits of classifying records (1)

Providing linkages between individual records which

accumulate to provide a continuous record of activity

p

y

Ensuring records are named in a consistent manner over

time

Assisting in the retrieval of all records relating to a

particular function or activity

Determining security protection and access appropriate

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g

y p

pp

p

for sets of records

Allocating user permissions for access to, or action on,

particular groups of records

Benefits of classifying records (2)

Distributing responsibility for management of particular

sets of records

Distributing records for action

Determining appropriate retention periods and

disposition actions for records

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Agenda

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Standards and guidelines

ISO 15489 - the international standard for records

management

g

MoReq2 - the Model Requirements for the Management

Of Electronic Records

DIRKS - the Design and Implementation of

Record-Keeping Systems methodology

ISO 2788 - Guidelines for the Establishment of

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Monolingual Thesauri

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Agenda

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Classification challenges (1)

Laborious and difficult to develop

Tendency to over analyse

Tendency to over-analyse

May need more than one

Classification of content into a

categorisation scheme is ongoing

work

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Classification challenges (2)

Categories need ongoing care and feeding

(including thesauri, taxonomies, controlled vocabularies

and ontologies)

Content changes, Context changes

Vocabularies change

Experience may breed new perspectives

What you have learned

How to leverage classification in general and taxonomies

in particular as part of an ECM strategy

Different approaches to subject-based organisation

schemes:

Taxonomies Thesauri Semantic networks 54 Ontologies Folksonomies

Managing classification challenges