We’ve discussed what it takes to make the components of a digital information model work but one of the things that is most important, if you want it all to work together, is standards. There are several controlled vocabulary standards, as well as networking protocols that have an impact on taxonomy implementation. There are also standards having to do with markup and with metadata and data modeling that impact thesauri.
Once you’ve developed a taxonomy, of course you want to use it. And before using it, you want (or should want) to test it. And, of course, the use is two ways. You can apply it to the records, for indexing, and you can use it for search, too; both of those applications are use tests at first, and can serve as use tests again for maintenance of the taxonomy. Once you get into the maintenance phase, you have to be able to edit and otherwise change lots of parts of the terms. You might change the status of the term itself, what it is called; for example, you could change the primary term that you use and put some other word in as the non-preferred term. You might want to delete or add a relationship. Of course, you want to add new terms. You might want to move the branches around. All of these things are part of routine taxonomy maintenance.
There is always talk about developing taxonomies - the process, the standards, etc. But a major part of a dynamic taxonomy and healthy document management systems is the maintenance required for taxonimies.
To discuss the semantic integration or the leveraging of a taxonomy in search, web sites mashups and other places, we should first review what they are. Let’s look at the definitions and then the integration of a taxonomy as a building block for the larger information architecture for an organization. We need to think of taxonomies in that bigger case when we are talking about where we apply them. Once those are out of the way I will review some use-cases and show what makes them work.
During her 33 years in the search industry, Margie Hlava, president of Access Innovations, has seen a lot of trends come and go. Today’s changing information environment, with its ever-growing avalanche of data and critical need for better search and more efficient organization of content, presents some unique challenges. Hlava recently shared her views with Steve Arnold, a technology and financial analyst who has more than 30 years of experience, as part of his Search Wizards Speak series. Access Innovations, Hlava’s company, is releasing an excerpt of the interview.
Look for IBM to roll out a set of cloud-based backup services designed to help organizations save, archive and restore data after a system failure or disaster. Known as the SmartCloud Resilience services, they complement IBM’s SmartCloud Managed Backup. The offering consists of a physical and virtual server recovery service that constantly backs up an organization's applications and related data on IBM's secure cloud infrastructure.
A thesaurus can be used for several different purposes. It is mainly used for information retrieval, in one way or another. We use it in information retrieval both on the search end and in the tagging of the records.
Loudon Mutual Insurance Company has chosen KeyMark Inc. for their document management solution in an effort to improve processes and increase efficiency.