SharePoint Taxonomy Fairy Dust
April 21, 2010
First, navigate to “SharePoint 2010: Using Taxonomy & Controlled Vocabulary for Content Enrichment”. Second, read the article. Now ask yourself these questions:
- Who sets up the SharePoint taxonomy magic?
- From where does the taxonomy come?
- Who maintains the taxonomy?
- How are inappropriate terms removed from the index and the correct terms applied?
Got your answers. Here are mine:
- A specialist in controlled term lists is needed to figure out the list and then an industrial strength system like the one available from Access Innovations is needed. Once the system is up and running and the term list generated you are ready to tackle SharePoint.
- The taxonomy comes from a method that involves figuring out the lingo of the organization, available term lists, and then knowledge value work. In short, a taxonomy has to be in touch with the organization and the domain of knowledge to which it is applied. Sound like work? It is and most taxonomy problems originate with slap dash methods.
- The taxonomy must be – note the imperative – by a combination of a human and software. New terms come and old terms go. The indexes and the tagged objects must be kept in sync. Humans with software tools perform this work. A taxonomy left to the devices of automated systems, left unchanged, or tweaked by azure chip experts is essentially useless after a period of time.
- Inappropriate terms are removed from the system via a human and software intermediated system. Once the term list is updated, then the process of retagging and reindexing takes places. Muff this bunny and no one can find anything.
Now read the article again. Quite a bit is left out or simply not deemed relevant. My suggestion is to do some thinking about the nature of the user, the specific information retrieval needs, and the expertise required to do the job to avoid wasting time and money.
Like most tasks in search, it is more fun to simplify than to deal from the top of the deck. SharePoint is one of the more interesting systems with which to work. Once the short cuts and half baked approach goes south, you will be ready to do the job correctly. I wonder if the CFO knows what questions to ask to figure out why content processing costs have gone through the roof because of rework, fiddling, and bungee jumping without a cord.
Stephen E Arnold, April 21, 2010
Unsponsored post
Comments
3 Responses to “SharePoint Taxonomy Fairy Dust”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
[…] SharePoint Taxonomy Fairy Dust (arnoldit.com) […]
[…] SharePoint Taxonomy Fairy Dust (arnoldit.com) Tags: hierarchical structure, hierarchies, taxonomies blog comments powered by Disqus var disqus_url = 'http://digitalassetmanagement.org.uk/2010/06/25/from-sumo-to-samurai-getting-your-taxonomies-fighting-fit-part-1/ '; var disqus_container_id = 'disqus_thread'; var facebookXdReceiverPath = 'http://digitalassetmanagement.org.uk/wp-content/plugins/disqus-comment-system/xd_receiver.htm'; var DsqLocal = { 'trackbacks': [ ], 'trackback_url': 'http://digitalassetmanagement.org.uk/2010/06/25/from-sumo-to-samurai-getting-your-taxonomies-fighting-fit-part-1/trackback/' }; […]
Taxonomy in SharePoint. Organizations are always looking for the magical formula with taxonomy and in most cases, have a tough time defining them. Thanks for this nice article
Stacy
SharePoint Consultant
ConvergePoint