[Sigcr-l] Proposed AM Session on Everyday Classification

[Joseph Busch]

As promised at the SIG CR business meeting in Austin, I've put together the
attached proposal for an ASIST 07 session on Everyday Classification on
Large Government and NGO Websites. This is essentially the same format that
worked well last year, and people had a positive response to it. I'm in the
process of confirming the proposed participants. Let me know if any
suggestions to improve the format and panel this year. Thanks.
____________________
Joseph A Busch
mobile +415-377-7912
jbusch at taxonomystrategies.com
www.taxonomystrategies.com
 
Taxonomy Strategies LLC
The Business of organized Information


***** Attachment oin Full Text Follows *****

Everyday Classification on Large Government and NGO Websites
Co-sponsors: SIG CR and SIG IA

This session is about everyday classification-specifically how public
information is categorized to make it findable on large government and NGO
websites. This panel includes representatives from three major public
agencies who will discuss how the categorization schemes used on their site
were developed, how the site activity is monitored to see how the schemes
perform, and how the schemes are modified in response to user activity or
agency initiatives. Classification researchers will react to these methods
by observing how established classification best practices are being
followed or not in these real world applications, what applicable practices
are not being followed, and whether current classification instruction is
preparing people with the skills to do this work. 

Moderator:
Joseph Busch, Founder and Principal, Taxonomy Strategies,
jbusch at taxonomystrategies.com, +415-377-7912. (Confirmed)

The moderator will take an active role in keeping the presenters and
responders on time and on topic. He will also try to engage the audience to
actively participate in this discussion.

Participants
Susan Fagan, Environmental Protection Agency Office of Information Access
and Analysis, Washington, DC, fagan.susan at epa.gov, +202-566-2021. (Not yet
Confirmed)
Jayne Dutra, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Enterprise Information Architecture,
Pasadena, CA, jayne.e.dutra at jpl.nasa.gov, +818-354-6948. (Not yet Confirmed)
Farah Gheriss, International Monetary Fund Library, Washington, DC,
fgheriss at imf.org, +202-623-7051. (Confirmed)

* What methods were used to develop the categorization scheme on the public
website in the first place? 
* Is the site activity monitored to see how the category schemes perform? 
* How are taxonomies and other category schemes modified in response to user
activity or agency initiatives?

Reactors: 
Barbara Kwasnik, Professor, Syracuse University School of Information
Studies, bkwasnik at syr.edu, +315-443-4547. (Confirmed)
Kathryn LaBarre, University of Illinois, klabarre at uiuc.edu, +217-244-4449.
(Confirmed)

Classification researchers will each provide up to a 10 minute response to
the public information site developers. In these responses, they will be
asked to respond to the following questions:

* Do the methods and types of categorization schemes correspond to well-know
practices in the classification research community? Please describe what
practices these are.
* What other practices seem applicable but are not being applied?
* Do you think current training in classification skills prepares people to
develop product taxonomies like the ones at these e-commerce sites?