We know that building a taxonomy is not easy. It requires research, building of terms, identifying criteria, and the list goes on and on. And we all know that it doesn’t always go smoothly and in predictable order. Some very interesting suggestions on how to deal with these challenges were found on the Association for Information and Image Management’s (AIIM) website, in the blog post titled, “Criteria for Term Selection in Your Taxonomy.”
Criteria are key, and the blogger here discusses thirteen criteria for what terms to admit to your taxonomy. You can read the entire article for the complete list, but I found two of special interest. First, appropriateness. Are the terms appropriate? Sometimes we get so focused on completing the list of terms, we and the subject matter experts forget to ask this question.
The other criterion that caught my eye was consistency. It is something I seek in my own life. And it’s important for building solid taxonomies. Keeping each term stylistically consistent with the other terms is key.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
