• Search software – of course
• Computer network
• Parsing of text
• Well formed or structured text
• CLEAN DATA
• Computer software – network
• Computer hardware
• Telecommunications connection
• Training sets for statistical systems
• Search technology
• Ranking algorithms
• Query language
• Federators
• Cache
• Inverted index
• Other enhancements
• Presentation layer

We will cover each of those items over the series; however, we also need to measure the accuracy of search. Accuracy in search is measured by three major areas: precision, recall, and relevance. Each of these can be handled in different ways. Part of the challenge in measuring search accuracy is that in search, there are two major theoretical directions. One of them is based on the Bayes theorems and the other on the algorithms of Boole. I will explore the work of these two gentlemen and of more recent people supporting search enrichment. Then I will discuss what effect they have on search as we know it today. Finally, I will discuss the effect of taxonomy on search.

How does search work?

Here is the normal path people take to search implementation.  “Well, I think I will get some hardware.”  And they say…. “Well, you can’t go wrong with Company X.”

• So they buy hardware and
• they buy the software that will work on that hardware.
• Then they design a system that will work with that software and
• then they try to load their data and,
• finally, they try to enhance the data with a taxonomy.

In my opinion, that is totally backwards. What they should be doing is looking at what they are building the system for in the first place – that is, the data. How about we build a system to hold your data?

We assess the data so that we can get a design; we know what fields there are. I have written about this backwards approach before.

What are you building? 

• Assess the data
• Do the design
• Decide what else needs to be added
• Taxonomy terms
• Other controls
• Find a system that will work with your data

Let’s outline the pieces of the search implementation. There are a lot of parts to search, and one of them, of course, is the search software itself. The search software itself runs on a computer network. The software depends on the parsing or the cutting of the text into specific pieces so that it can be searched. That means that the data needs to be well-formed, if you are talking in the XML vernacular, or structured. Unstructured data is simply data that has not been tagged into fields. You could transform a Word document, which is generally considered unstructured, into a well-formed, XML structured document, by simply putting <Begin Body> and <Close Body> at the beginning and end of the text. Yes, it can be that deceptively and technically simple. The whole notion of structured and unstructured text is a bit of a misnomer and a little bit hard to understand, because most of us don’t think of data in that way. In fact, a Word document has a Properties table in it that may or may not be populated. Some things are populated in it by default. So it is, actually, partially structured already. It can even be saved as an XML document. The search software must depend for its implementation on clean data. That means it has to be clean, well-formed, preferably the metadata fields are all filled in, including the addition of the taxonomy terms in a specific tagged field or element.

The computer software runs on a network, which runs on hardware. To get to it, you need to have a telecommunications connection of some kind. It might be a hard network wire within your organization – so you connect from one place to another within the firm – or it might be something that goes over the Internet to a remote location. It doesn’t really matter – the connection is still a telecommunications connection that transfers data in an orderly fashion over a wire.

Next week we will talk about the search software itself.

Marjorie M.K. Hlava
President, Access Innovations

Scripps Howard News Service brought this to our attention via The Republic’s article, “Medical: Number of diagnostic codes multiply ad nauseam.” Access Innovations’ M.A.I. machine-assisted indexing system and specialists in complex coding, tagging, and indexing can minimize the risk of coding errors with proper training and quality assurance. Many widely used tagging systems lack the user-friendly interface and may not implement a rigorous ANSI-compliant coding subsystem. Access Innovations’ solutions are ANSI-compliant and implement state-of-the-art technology to speed tagging and reduce errors.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.

Broadcast Newsroom brought this event to our attention in their article, “Createasphere’s Digital Asset Management Conference Announces Schedule for Expert and Practitioner Driven Event.” The event is scheduled for February 22-23, 2012. You can find more details and register here.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.

We found this on CMSWire in their article, “Taxonomy Building: Tackling the Challenges.” Marjorie M. K. Hlava, President and Chairman of Access Innovations Inc., was one of the featured speakers, providing an introduction to the process of creating a taxonomy.

According to the author, a memorable piece of her presentation was what she saw as a “shift in semantics” around taxonomies. Many organizations now refer to knowledge management and the capture of metadata and taxonomy structures as “knowledge organization systems”. This shift in language is important. While many organizations are struggling with building out their taxonomies, they are learning what and why it is important.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.

Mark Ware, Vice President and Lead Analyst of Outsell, recently talked about the Force11 project in his post titled, “Listening to the Alpha Geeks – What Comes After the Article of the Future? Open source is important to the Force11 project, and it is easy to see why. One of the greatest advantages in contributing to open source is the ability to collaborate with a diverse, enthusiastic community.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.

We found this interesting news on PRNewswire in “The Open Group Publishes New Standards for SOA and Cloud.” The new standards are: SOA Reference Architecture (SOA RA) and the Service-Oriented Cloud Computing Infrastructure (SOCCI) Framework. The Open Group has also released updates to the Open Group Service Integration Maturity Model (OSIMM), which has now been ratified as an ISO and IEC International Standard (ISO/IEC 166880). OSIMM gives organizations a common model for developing a road map for achieving the right level of service adoption to meet business objectives.

This may not immediately seem like exciting news, but any effort made to establish standards to provide organized and approved processes that could affect many organizations is a good thing.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.

Business Wire brought this topic to our attention in their article, “Health Language, Inc. Launches a New Version of its Provider Friendly Terminology to Include Attributes Native to ICD-10-CM.” This version simplifies complexities that are associated with coding in ICD-10 by allowing providers to use familiar terminology when entering data on electronic health records (EHR). This can result in an increased clinical workflow and lower lost revenue from inaccurate or incomplete clinical documentation.

The new ICD-10 coding classification system that goes into effect in October 2013 will have five times the number of codes to use for billing reimbursement than the current ICD-9 does. Access Innovations’ M.A.I. machine-assisted indexing system and specialists in complex coding, tagging, and indexing can minimize the risk of coding errors with proper training and quality assurance. Many widely used tagging systems lack the user-friendly interface and may not implement a rigorous ANSI-compliant coding subsystem. Access Innovations’ solutions are ANSI-compliant and implement state-of-the-art technology to speed tagging and reduce errors.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.

This interesting information was found on Knowledgespeak in their article, “Report identifies contemporary challenges faced by physical science researchers.” The research indicates that entities such as research councils, publishing houses, and libraries should step up and help physical scientists gather, manage, and share research information. Apparently, the needs vary among the various research groups due to their approach and challenges.

It is nice to see some value given to the researchers, librarians, and scientists attempting to gather data, as well as the call for some help in their endeavors.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.

MarketWatch brought this news to our attention in their article, “Vertical Search Works Launches New Faceted VS4Food Search.” VS4Food organizes results into relevant categories or facets, along with relevant images. The search results also contain relevant advertisements selected by their semantic ad matching technology.

This interesting attempt at findability can be made possible with proper indexing. Proper indexing against a strong standards-based taxonomy increases the findability of data. Access Innovations is one of a very small number of companies able to help its clients generate ANSI/ISO/W3C-compliant taxonomies.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.

This interesting news was found on The Big Data Blog in their post, “Handling Big Data Variety.” New semantic technology is advancing the already established process by providing a set of formalized XML-based standards for storage, querying, and manipulation of data. One of most powerful aspects of semantic technology is known as entity extraction. This capability allows information to be extracted from unstructured data and combined with transactional data. This results in some deep analytics.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.