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March 12, 2010
Taxonomy vs. Metadata
An important step in defining a Digital Asset Management system or a Web Content Management System strategy is to define the metadata and taxonomy needs that will support an organization's goals for categorizing and relating both assets and content.
Having worked with numerous clients and partners on defining such a strategy I've seen that it is very easy to confuse taxonomy with metadata or vice versa.
What is Metadata?
Metadata is data about data! Think of metadata as information about an asset beyond the basic filename. Any sort of attribute or element that helps to define or describe a particular image, document, presentation or spreadsheet would be considered metadata.
iTunes and eBooks all use metadata to display information to users about the song they are listening to or the book they are reading.
In the case of Digital Rights, metadata can be used to help protect an asset's intellectual property rights.
What is Taxonomy?
Taxonomy (from Greek "taxis" meaning arrangement or division and "nomos" meaning law) is the science of classification according to a pre-determined system with the resulting catalog used to provide a conceptual framework for discussion, analysis, or information retrieval.
Think back to your High School Science Class, you may remember a certain King Phillip that Came Over For Good Soup. This simple mnemonic was taught to us to help us remember the basic taxonomy for categorizing living species: Kingdom->Phylum->Class->Order->Family->Genus->Species.
Taxonomies are different from metadata in that a taxonomy helps you to organize your content and assets into hierarchical relationships. Classifying content and assets in a taxonomy can make it far easier to search for or browse a Digital Asset Management or Web Content Management System when you aren't sure exactly what you are looking for.
Defining and using a taxonomy can offer additional benefits in that users of the system will be categorizing content and assets using a controlled vocabulary. This controlled vocabulary can be utilized as an integration reference point between different business systems.
In working to define a taxonomy a few best practices should be followed:
- Taxonomy should be media independent
- Should have a specific use
- Should have a logical hierarchy
- Should be easy to understand by users in different divisions or departments
- Should conform to other published taxonomy standards when possible (see: http://www.taxonomywarehouse.com)
- Should not be redundant to other defined metadata
- Avoid acronyms or abbreviations where possible
- Should not nest further than 5 levels if possible
Posted at 06:01 pm by Ivan Mironchuk
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Hi Ivan,
Could you elaborate more on the following two best practices to design a taxonomy in your article:
Thanks,
Ann
Thanks Ivan for a good "101" overview of these two critical topics (taxonomy and metadata). Having built dozens of taxonomies and metadata schemas over the years, I do want to challenge one point you make above:
My experience says "embrace the acronym" and use it as a Preferred Term in your taxonomy. As long as you can have the full term added as a Non-Preferred (or synonym) term, users understand and use abbreviations far more than the long version.
Building a series of taxonomies at NASA, which has more than 40,000 acronyms/abbreviations in use within the system, taught me that this is a "necessary evil" that taxonomists everywhere now have to deal with.
Mike brings up a great point here. For organizations with broad vocabularies, many of the literal terms within being longer thus necessarily cumbersome to manage in a taxonomy, what Mike suggests is right and true. The challenge is that the taxonomists charged with maintaining the taxonomy become 'hyperspecialists' and it is a bit harder to on-board a new person onto the team. I think that is what Mike meant by 'necessary evil.'
For organizations with more modest taxonomy needs, I still think Ivan's suggestion holds true, particularly since smaller companies that are implementing a digital asset management or content management system don't necessarily have the funding to hire and retain a taxonomist. Thus, trying to keep vocabularies as literal really helps. I'm not sure if that was what Ivan was originally driving at. Ivan?
I would agree that in some cases abbreviations and acronyms are necessary.In some organizations an acronym may be universally known and accepted. I think what should be avoided is building a taxonomy filled with abbreviations and acronyms as a form of convenience. I've worked with organizations where every product and every service had an acronym, and in some cases different departments would speak of the product or service using different acronyms. To an outside contributor or new employee, having a complex system of abbreviations and acronyms can make it difficult to find what you are looking for.
Yes! That's what I ran into at NASA (and I'm sure most other large orgs have the same issue). Newbies (and seasoned vets) were confused by the large number of acronyms, and in some cases, this confusion can lead to disaster. What I'm suggesting is to judiciously use acronyms as PTs when it makes sense, but also make sure your taxo technology can disambiguate these acronyms within search results. Great conversation. Thanks!