Sharepoint & Taxonomy

“What Goes Where?”

Sharepoint, Taxonomies & Metadata

Matt MooreInnotecture

Taxonomies

“Orange Blossom”Traminer RieslingSouth Australia2008$8.10

• 000 – Computer science, information & general works • 100 – Philosophy and psychology • 200 – Religion • 300 – Social sciences • 500 – Science • 600 – Technology • 700 – Arts and recreation • 800 – Literature • 900 – History, geography, and biography

• 000 – Computer science, information & general works • 100 – Philosophy and psychology • 200 – Religion • 300 – Social sciences • 500 – Science • 600 – Technology • 700 – Arts and recreation • 800 – Literature • 900 – History, geography, and biography

– 930 History of ancient world – 940 General history of Europe – 950 General history of Asia; Far East – 960 General history of Africa – 970 General history of North America – 980 General history of South America – 990 General history of other areas

• 000 – Computer science, information & general works • 100 – Philosophy and psychology • 200 – Religion • 300 – Social sciences • 500 – Science • 600 – Technology • 700 – Arts and recreation • 800 – Literature • 900 – History, geography, and biography

– 930 History of ancient world – 940 General history of Europe – 950 General history of Asia; Far East – 960 General history of Africa – 970 General history of North America – 980 General history of South America – 990 General history of other areas

• 993 General history of other areas; New Zealand • 994 General history of other areas; Australia • 995 General history of other areas; Melanesia; New Guinea • 996 General history of other areas; Other parts of Pacific Polynesia • 997 General history of other areas; Atlantic Ocean islands • 998 General history of other areas; Arctic islands & Antarctica • 999 Extraterrestrial worlds

http://www.epicurious.com

“Orange Blossom”Traminer RieslingSouth Australia2008$8.10

“Who needs taxonomies anyway, we’ve got search!”

Using Taxonomies

Experts

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raster/3380860520/

Experts

Machines

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raster/3380860520/http://www.flickr.com/photos/brewbooks/3315685906/

Experts

Machines

Users

http://www.flickr.com/photos/raster/3380860520/http://www.flickr.com/photos/brewbooks/3315685906/http://www.flickr.com/photos/ntr23/730371240/

Advantages Disadvantages

Experts High-quality & consistent outputs

Can handle ambiguity

ExpensiveTime-consuming

May not understand user perspective

Machines ScalableQuick

Poor at ambiguityCosts may vary

Users CheapScalable (ish)

Rarely consistentOften Uninterested

1. Building

• Buy off the shelf externally (…and tweak it a bit)

• Machine analysis• Existing organisational vocabularies & data

models• Input from users (workshops, tagging)

This will be an ongoing process.

2. Applying

• Auto-categorisation• User-based tagging (either free or based on

taxonomy)• Expert tagging and/or editing in workflow

It all depends on scale & risk.

3. Consuming

• Users like pictures (maps, trees, tags clouds)• Linked to other apps (e.g. Search) or via

workflow

Taxonomies should not be run for experts!

Building Applying Consuming

ExpertsBuy off the shelf

ORBuild based on analysis

Manual Tagging against Taxonomy

-

Machines Semantic and/or Concept Analysis

Automated Categorisation

Ontology-based Processes

Users Tagging & Folksonomies

Manual Tagging(whatever)

Tag Clouds &Visualisation

Search

Common categories

• Process• Location• Product/Service• Customer• Role/Position• Project• Department• etc…

Some words of warning

• Names are political – who gets the choose the words is important.

• Taxonomies should reflect reality - do not attempt to enforce a non-existent unity.

• Is this field really necessary? - beware taxonomic overstretch.

• Taxonomies should help not hinder.

Enter Sharepoint

Folders or Metadata?

• Content Typesbuilt from• Site Columnsthat reference• Lists

The Metadata Trio

Some issues

Flat

• Relationships between terms within multiple lists not well comprehended.

• This is OK for facets.• Not so good for hierarchies.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bricolage108/438984181/

Islands

• Difficult to manage metadata across multiple sites.

• Lists & Site Columns can end up sitting at different positions in the site hierarchy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garibaldi/209338463/

Simple

• Doesn’t do all the fancy automated analysis & categorisation stuff

http://www.flickr.com/photos/foot-slogger/1405665772/

Third-Party Vendors

Complexity / Cost

Building Applying Consuming

Experts

Machines

Users

Handy Resources

TaxoCop: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxoCoP/Earley & Associates: http://www.earley.com/Mark Schneider: http://www.sharepointplan.com/Montague Institute: http://www.montague.com/

• Is the patchiness of Sharepoint's taxonomy/metadata functionality really a problem? And if so...

• Will 2010 be better?• What experiences do you have of third-party

products?• What workarounds are you using?

Questions?