Jim Sweeney, Product Manager Synaptica [email protected]
Chaos-Control!
Enterprise Managementof Federated Taxonomies
TaxonomyBoot Camp
2012
Rules of the Game
Enterprise Taxonomy:• Centralized• Standardized Terms• Universally applied• Single Language
An enterprise taxonomy is generally synonymous with centralized taxonomy, just as federated taxonomies are generally synonymous with decentralized taxonomy.
Federated Taxonomies:• Decentralized• Specific Terminology• Conditionally applied• Multilingual
But… Rules are Made to be Broken!
What happens when we need both the efficiency and cross-searchability associated with centralized taxonomy management and the autonomy associated with decentralized taxonomy management?
Challenges
• How to allow autonomous and geographically diverse business units to use and apply their own terminology and organizational structure while maintaining some kind of universal standardization?
• How to provide for successful information retrieval from diverse disciplines and languages across all business assets?
Option A…
• In cases where it is desirable to use a single term set but apply varying hierarchical structures to those terms, one may use a multiple broader / narrower relationship class (mBT / mNT).
• The following example is taken from the TBC 2011 presentation given by Intel’s Sherry Chang, “Hierarchies & Polyhierarchies: Is More Better?”
Example
How we build it
Or we can view the distinct hierarchical structure for the Support group.
Result
We can view either the Marketing version of the hierarchy…
Pros and Cons to Approach A
• Very effective means of organizing distinct, parallel hierarchies using the same terms
• Simple to manage• Limits “taxonomies” to identical terms without
differentiation for business group, region, or language
Option B…
• A second strategy is to maintain each federated taxonomy independently and then map them together at the term or concept level.
• This method is able to accommodate multiple, disparate taxonomies and other vocabularies linked together via custom relationships.
• The resulting collections build out an ontology storing unique terms, languages, and structures as needed.
IPTC(International
PressTelecommunications
Council)
Example
Pros and Cons to Approach B
• Each federated taxonomy may be managed as an independent taxonomy
• Custom relationships may link to a “master” taxonomy and/or to one another
• Dependent vocabularies may be managed with or without hierarchical structure
• Labor intensive to manage each taxonomy independently
Using a centralized enterprise taxonomy as an umbrella to cover all concepts across the business standardizes results but limits the autonomy of individual business groups.
Option C…
While discrete “siloed” taxonomies serve independent groups within the
organization, they lack search standardization.
Discrete federated taxonomies to serveindividual business units
Mapping relationships to link upper
level concepts to “siloed” concepts
Master Taxonomy manages global concepts
Pros and Cons to Approach C
• Each business taxonomy may contain different terminology; different hierarchical structures; and greater granularity
• When “siloed” taxonomy terms are more granular than those in the upper taxonomy, more specific concepts have to map upwards to broader concepts
• This upward mapping impedes the ability to perform searches across the information assets of the business
• Striving for an Enterprise taxonomy with common language and structure is an important goal, but not always possible
• Supporting variance is an important and powerful tool
• Choose the best approach to address your organization’s unique structure and practices
• Maintain standards for taxonomy development over time to avoid further divergence
Winning Combinations
Questions?
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