We are delighted to share that Judi Vernau, the director of Metataxis New Zealand, has just launched a new blog in collaboration with ISKO UK. Judi is a taxonomy and information architecture expert, and an ISKO committee member. A previous director of Metataxis UK, Judi is now settled in New Zealand, and her first blog entry sets the scene for discussing information architecture from a “kiwi” perspective. We look forward to future posts!
Read the first blog in the upcoming series here.
The skies may be grey and an umbrella the accessory you simply can’t live without – just means you have all the more reason to come to Taxonomy Bootcamp this week in Olympia, London!
Metataxis directors, Marc Stephenson and Noeleen Schenk will be presenting on ‘Blockchain: Emperor’s new clothes or essential knowledge organisation technology?’
Metataxis has participated in and supported Taxonomy Bootcamp over the years. It’s rewarding to see its scope and relevance increase as the benefits and necessity of managing, protecting, describing and discovering information and data are recognised.
So many possibilities and potential to explore at Olympia this Tuesday and Wednesday. If you would like to catch up with Metataxis staff during Taxonomy Bootcamp, please contact us here.
To follow good news with more good news – Metataxis are delighted to announce that our application for the Digital Outcomes and Specialist 4 has been successful!
This framework makes it quicker and simpler for the public sector to find and engage with suppliers across a range of digital services. Being a preferred supplier on the Government’s procurement framework makes it easy for public sector organisations to access the specialist information management and architecture expertise Metataxis are renown for.
If you would like our support for your digital transformation project, please click here to contact us.
On Friday April 5th I was lucky enough to attend the ISKO event Metadata, taxonomies and retrieval, which was held at City, University of London after the ISKO AGM. After introductions by ISKO chair David Haynes, 4 very different speakers covered a range of topics, all around the theme of metadata, taxonomies and retrieval.
Getaneh Alemu opened with a detailed look at how he and the library team at Solent University have improved discovery across the library catalogue, using his four main principles of quality metadata. Building on his PhD work, Getaneh outlined the four overarching metatdata principles for successful search: metadata enriching, linking, openness and filtering. Using these principles as guides, he has been able to analyse user search patterns and inform more efficient cataloguing practices at Solent.
Next we heard from Cancer Research UK’s Taxonomy Manager, Thomas Alexander. Thomas has led the development of a system-agnostic single taxonomy at Cancer Research UK, creating a common language across the whole organisation. This single taxonomy is shared across their external website, internal SharePoint site, and IT helpdesk services. While this common vocabulary has made finding information easier across the organisation, it required several stages of user testing and validation, and is slightly restricted by SharePoint functionality in some cases. Thomas hopes that having the solid taxonomy established will be a great place to start any future ontology projects he has in mind.
After a refreshment break, Niké Brown presented around taxonomy challenges in digital publishing. Niké has many years’ experience in this field, and even remembers her former company launching their first ever CD-Rom, a format and content challenge that helped launch her particular interest in this topic. We were taken through several examples of different approaches to digital publishing taxonomies, and the challenges faced by each. Several points were raised linking to the previous presentations, around the pros and cons of one large, all-encompassing taxonomy vs. multiple smaller, specialist taxonomies, and the importance of proper metadata enrichment.
The final speaker was Eugene Morozov, who talked about W3C Semantic Web standards and discoverability of regulatory rulebooks. Eugene went over some of the pros and cons of Model-Driven Machine Executable Regulation (MDMER), and the benefits this developing field could have in the future. Building on the 5-star Open Data rating scheme, Eugene provided examples of various regulations and rated them accordingly, including an axis of granularity and an axis of semantic richness to provide a fuller picture.
The audience was then invited to ask questions of the 4 speakers in a panel discussion, addressing the questions Metadata and Taxonomies: best hidden behind the scenes, or fully exposed to users? All speakers had different experiences of both these approaches, and all ultimately agreed it depended on context. There was a consensus around the importance of having enough information for users to be able to narrow down their search, help with ambiguous search terms find related terms etc, without providing an overwhelmingly large full taxonomy. Some interesting points were then raised around AI and machine learning, as well as voice search and how taxonomies will apply and be available for voice search results. All panellists believed the most important thing regardless of the approach adopted is having high quality taxonomies in place.
Overall it was a thoroughly interesting afternoon, with some great speakers and thought-provoking questions. I look forward to the next ISKO event! https://www.iskouk.org/events
I attended the Taxonomy Boot Camp London on 17 October. Another great conference!
I presented some (playful) thoughts on the possible demise of Information Architecture as a profession. Take a look at my slides.
More importantly, Judi Vernau made it to the shortlist of Taxonomy Practitioner of the Year. Congratulations to the winner Tom Alexander of Cancer Research UK!
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