A constant challenge for any content manager is the training to apply the right tags and metadata. We all know how important leaving these breadcrumbs can be to operating a comprehensive search. It is like filing something away in a blank folder with no idea of what it is and no way to find it. The DataFacet solution from WAND Inc provides sets of extensive taxonomies, and tools to automate the classification of documents and web content.
This interesting information was found on Image and Data Manager in their article, “DataFacet waves a WAND over SharePoint taxonomies.” Pre-set taxonomies and automated classification and tagging can be tempting, but as we all know, cookie cutter indexing isn’t comprehensive. Machine assisted indexing can certainly increase efficiency and reduce errors, but without a solid taxonomy to index against, the results can be less than ideal.
Access Innovations is one of a very small number of companies able to help its clients generate ANSI/ISO/W3C-compliant taxonomies. By focusing on making information findable, we produce knowledge organization that works.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
Thanks for the post, Melody, and the mention about WAND. I wanted to add a few points and clarifications to your post as it relates to WAND.
I agree that a one size fits all approach is not a good idea, and that is not what WAND is offering or communicating to our customers. WAND’s taxonomies are not going to be a perfect fit right of the shelf (no taxonomy ever will, unfortunately), and they are not designed to be. Instead, we have tailored our taxonomies to give our customers a strong foundation from which they can then customize for their business. Different taxonomies that we offer are designed as helpful jump-starts for different businesses. We are careful that each customers starts with a taxonomy or taxonomies that are relevant to its business. This helps the taxonomy building process because business users have something that they can give tangible feedback on. If we don’t have a taxonomy that is a good fit, then taxonomies will have to be created from scratch.
Regarding the DataFacet automatic tagging engine, it uses a rules based approach that relies heavily on the taxonomies and associated rules that a human being needs to set-up. I agree that a solid taxonomy is important to get good results, and our approach is designed to help our get customers to this point as efficiently as possible.
[…] was intrigued to read a post over at TaxoDairy, a blog hosted by my friends at Access Innovations. “One Size Fits All Taxonomies” caught my attention because I’m a firm believer that all taxonomies, especially those at the […]