[Sigia-l] [ANN] Metadata, Taxonomies, and Information Architecture at Documentation and Training Vancouver

[Scott Abel]

Don't miss "Metadata, Taxonomies, and Information Architecture:  
Putting the pieces together to create an effective user experience",  
a half-day workshop with Seth Earley at the Documentation and  
Training Conference, April 18-21, 2007 in beautiful Vancouver, BC.   
The theme of this year's event is "The User Experience".

Learn more: http://www.doctrain.com
Download the program (PDF): http://www.doctrain.com/images/uploads/ 
doctrain_ux.pdf

"Metadata, Taxonomies, and Information Architecture: Putting the  
pieces together to create an effective user experience"
Speaker: Seth Earley    Time: 8AM - 12PM  21 April 2007
Track: Workshops

Organizations are embarking on taxonomy initiatives to serve a wide  
variety of audiences and purposes.  Fundamentally these are metadata  
management projects, but business sponsors rarely see them in that  
light. In many cases, taxonomy initiatives are seen as separate from  
enterprise data initiatives.  This workshop will go through taxonomy  
project processes for derivation, validation, testing, integration,  
rollout and governance.  Attendees will be able to understand how  
taxonomy projects should be integrated with overall metadata  
management and the best ways to communicate their role to business  
users and sponsors.

     * Taxonomy drivers
     * Information architecture versus Semantic architecture
     * Project definition
     * Audience selection
     * Data gathering techniques
     * Content review processes
     * Term Extraction
     * Creating search and navigation scenarios
     * Search engine and content management system integration
     * Testing and validation
     * Training and Rollout
     * Governance and integration with enterprise metadata management

A taxonomy is a system for classifying and organizing large amounts  
of information. In an enterprise, they are used in a variety of  
contexts to organize information so that it is information.

When creating a taxonomy for an enterprise, the first step is to  
understand the goals of the taxonomy and how it will be applied.  Is  
it primarily for navigation?  Will it be to tune search?  To allow  
for faceted navigation?  For tagging content?  Developing synonym  
rings?  How will tools leverage the taxonomy?  How will terms be  
applied?  How will users access the terms?  What systems will consume  
he taxonomy?  What systems will act as the “sources of truth”?

Another important aspect is the knowledge audit.  A knowledge audit  
is the system analysis component of taxonomy creation. Knowledge  
auditors, who are usually taxonomists or subject matter experts, ask  
potential users a series of questions in order to understand the  
users’ information needs. A knowledge audit can be conducted as a  
focus group or as a workshop.

     * The following types of questions are useful for determining  
the information needs of users:
     * What sources of information do you access on a day-to-day basis?
     * Where are they located?
     * How do you find them? (What problems do you have finding them?)
     * What is on your desktop?
     * What Web sites do you use?
     * What pages are bookmarked?
     * Does your company have existing sources for categorizing  
information, perhaps in legacy databases?
     * Are there external taxonomies that represent your areas of  
interest?
     * If your company has a corporate library, what sources of  
information do the librarians use?
     * What other resources do you turn to when you need an answer to  
a question?
     * How do you anticipate the “content” of your intranet,  
knowledge content, policy and procedure content– evolving over the  
next five years?
     * What repositories might there be, how would they relate and  
link to each other, and who would manage them?

These are the starting points for developing a taxonomy, In our  
session, we will go through these and additional details and  
approaches so that you will understand how to begin your enterprise  
taxonomy project.

We've moved our office to service you better!
=======================================
Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, Inc.
6149 N. Guilford, Indianapolis, IN 46220
+1 317-466-1840   skype: abelsp   email: abelsp at netdirect.net
web: http://www.thecontentwrangler.com

DOCUMENTATION & TRAINING: THE USER EXPERIENCE
APR 18-21, 2007 ~ Vancouver BC
Learn more: http://www.doctrain.com

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