[Sigia-l] Taxonomy Warehouse

[Randy Wilson]

Thanks for pointing this out to my attention Marianne.

Pros: Its great that they are providing information
about actual "knowledge structures".  It helps to
educate people in a concrete way.  I think when people
say "taxonomy", it sounds esoteric and abstract.  This
helps to put some flesh and bones to the idea.  Also
they they have collected quite a few of these
resources and made it relatively easy to locate
information about them.

Cons: It makes obtaining "knowledge structures" and
using them seem fairly straightforward.  Synaptica is
trying to sell product/services in this area so of
course they don't want to erect barriers from the
get-go.  But trust me, the issues are many, thorny and
expensive.

A suggestion for the future of the site: encourage
vendors to provide visualizations of a piece of the
structure.  example:

!diseases
    !heart disease
       !cardiomyopathy

or

!disease (rt) condition
!heart disease (rt) cardiology

This would help to further educate people about how
different these structures can be in concrete terms.

The fact that I don't use the term "taxonomy" suggests
the very tip of this iceberg.  Very few of these
"taxonomies" are alike in their structure.  In fact,
the problem with focusing on "taxonomies" is that it
begins the discussion in the wrong place.  The first
question is, what is the nature of the project and its
business objectives that make someone thing they need
a taxonomy?  

That said, if the "taxonomy warehouse" produces good
discussions about categorization electronic data, then
its probably worth its weight in gold.

Randy Wilson


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