Strategies LLC Taxonomy November 8, 2007Copyright 2007 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved. Tagging with a Taxonomy Joseph A. Busch

2 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Agenda v How will content be tagged up using the taxonomy? v How much will it cost to tag content? v Who should tag content? v How accurate is tagging?

3 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information How will content be tagged up using the taxonomy? v Prioritization  Not everything needs to be tagged. v Business rules  Simple “if then” rules can automate high-level, broad tagging. v Workflow  Require some basic tagging to submit item to CMS. v Templates  Create context-sensitive pick lists and default values. v Incentives  Provide almost instantaneous feedback.

4 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Prioritize content to be tagged v Identify and dispose of ROT  It’s expensive and unnecessary to tag Redundant, Obsolete & Trivial content v Estimate future value of content  E.g. a fashion magazine that commissioned a noted photographer to do a photo essay on a notable designer will have more future use of the content than they will for photos of lipstick smears. The former justifies more effort in tagging than the latter.

5 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Use business rules to automate content tagging v Tag top-level content first  Tag landing pages for major sections  Lower-level pages inherit tags from top-level pages v If content originated in this department, then tag it with pre-defined values. v If the first line of content is centered and in title case, then use it to fill-in the Title field. v Assume that the person who is logged on is the of the content  Inherit the department in which that person works as the content

6 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Use workflow to enforce tagging v Require entry of simple tagging in order to submit an item into the content management system  Or, require approval of automatically filled-in tags.

7 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Use templates to guide user tagging v Define templates for common content types. v Pre-populate template fields whenever possible.  Use business rules.  Use template-specific default values. v Use pick lists  Make lists context sensitive to the specific template & user. v Call out to taxonomy services for more complex controlled vocabularies  Most CMS templates cannot handle hierarchical pick lists.  Advanced services provide vocabulary searching.

8 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Provide tagging incentives v Almost instantaneous feedback  Show results from tagging such as tag clouds, mash-ups, RSS feeds, etc.  Search engine indexing as quickly as possible.

9 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Tagging cost v How to estimate the cost of tagging or retagging content: 1. How many items are affected? 2. What is the per-item tagging cost?

10 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information How to estimate per item tagging cost Taxonomy FacetHier?CV Size Time/ Value (min) Avg # values / item$ / min Cost / Element Subject Business functionsY $ 0.75$ 2.25 Management skillsY $ 0.75 $ 0.08 Tools & methodologiesY $ 0.75 $ 0.08 TopicsY $ 0.75 $ 3.75 Industries & productsY $ 0.75 $ 2.25 GeographyY $ 0.75 $ 0.08 Organizations & business entitiesY $ 0.75$ 0.08 People & roles $ 0.75 $ 0.08 Audience LevelN $ 0.75 $ 0.08 Intent & styleN $ 0.75 $ 0.08 TOTALS1, $ 8.89

11 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information How to estimate total tagging cost CategoryLegacyAnnual (10% growth) Content items10,0001,000 Tagging cost/item$ 8.89 Tagging cost$ 88,900$ 8,890

12 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Who should tag content v All tagging is useful  End user tagging  Tagging by librarians  Automated tagging by OS and algorithms v Ideally, content should be tagged throughout its lifecycle, each time the content is handled and used so that it accrues value or its significance is diminished.

13 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Four tagging rules RuleDescription Characterize the content overall Use terms that describe overall what the content is about and why it is important. Use multiple terms If one single term doesn’t describe the content overall, use several terms from the same facet. But avoid over tagging. In most cases no more than 3 terms. Use appropriate terms Only fill-in the facets & values that make sense. Not all facets apply to all content. Consider how content will be used Anticipate how the content will be searched for in the future, & how to make it easy to find it. Remember that search engines can only operate on explicit information.

14 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Common tagging problems v Tagging is reviewed by adding categories, but not removing them. v Taggers fill-in every blank in the template  Where it says to provide up to eight categories, eight are often provided. v The version of the taxonomy being used in tagging varies depending on where, by whom and when the tagging is being done. v Inadequate guidance and training is being provided on the appropriate method and process for tagging content. v There is little or no routine review of how the content works in the production environment, and then making changes in response to observing what works and what doesn’t.

15 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information How accurate is tagging v “Two people choose the same main key word for a single well known object less than 20% of the time.”  Furnas, G.W., Landauer, T.K., Gomez, L.M., and Dumais, S.T. Statistical semantics: Analysis of the potential performance of key-word information systems. Bell System Technical Journal, 1983, 62(6), v “… studies have consistently concluded that recorded levels of consistency vary markedly, and that high levels of consistency are rarely achieved.”  Leonard, L.E. Inter-indexer consistency studies, : a review of the literature and summary of study results. Graduate School of Library Science, University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, IL, 1977.

Strategies LLC Taxonomy November 8, 2007Copyright 2007 Taxonomy Strategies LLC. All rights reserved. Questions? Joseph A. Busch

17 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information

18 Taxonomy Strategies LLC The business of organized information Original list of topics to be covered v How can the effort to tag legacy and new content be assessed? Does legacy content need to be tagged? v Who should tag content with a taxonomy—content creators or tagging specialists? What kinds of tagging rules are needed to ensure tag consistency and relevancy? v How difficult is it to implement automated taxonomy tagging methods? How accurate will automated taxonomy tagging be? How much editorial review will be needed? v Can a collection be tagged with a taxonomy once and never tagged again? What are the benefits of continuous taxonomy tagging review and improvement?