information landscapes – modelling your information assets (part 1 – as is)

© Metataxis 2015 Designing the information-centric environment since 2002 Slide 1 of 20

Metataxis

Information landscapes:

modelling your information assets

(part 1 – As Is)

Judi Vernau, Liz O’Connor

February 2015


The first step in building an information architecture is to get an overview of your ‘information landscape’, ie a picture of your current content. This involves investigation and modelling.

Whatever your content, you need some level of information architecture in order to:• find it• store it• manage it.

Information architecture and the information landscape


• The physical model: the ‘as is’ situation - what’s where, how much, what type?

• The domain model: what’s it all about? What the information covers in terms of subject matter.

2. Designing what you need (To Be)

Information modelling

1. Understanding what you’ve got (As Is)

• Designing the new groupings which best fit your needs• Working out how to describe each information object

within each grouping.


Access controls

Templates

Taxonomy

Metadata framework

Domain model

Findability strategyCollections model

Physical modelCo

nten

t / In

form

ation

str

ateg

y

the conceptual scope of the content

the type, amount and format of content

the appropriate groupings of content

how the content needs to be described

consistent terminology

consistent presentation and editorial support

who can see what

Information architecture components

The red arrows indicate the components outlined in these slides. These make up the ‘As is’ view of the content.


The physical model

In order to manage and exploit enterprise content, you need to know what, where and how much there is.• What kinds of information do you hold?

• Where is it all? What are the repositories (electronic or paper)?

• How much of each kind of content is in each repository?

• How old is it? When was it last looked at?

• Who is allowed to access it? Who should be allowed to access it?

• How is your current content described (if at all)?

A content inventory provides the input for the physical model of your information assets.


Creating the content inventory

Qualitative information – from stakeholders: - Interviews - Questionnaires - Workshops - Chatting

Quantitative information – from systems: - Scripts or tools (file systems especially, but others also) - Using the systems and note taking - Talking to system administrators and users

Exploratory – from experts (us!): - Just having a look round – very insightful - “ping the glass”

Some or all of these can be used


Physical modelling – what are you trying to convey?

The results might show:

• The overwhelming amount of documents and data

• How the same information can be found in several places

• How much of the information is old and hasn’t been looked at for years

• That there are old file formats that may not be usable now

• That personal information is not protected

• That some people store MP3 files and family photos on the network!


Physical modelling – how to convey the landscape?

Visuals are always good: graphs, diagrams, tables….

ExtensionNumber of

Files% of All

Files.xls 1,220,820 17.6%.doc 1,023,648 14.7%.jpg 498,524 7.2%.txt 445,645 6.4%.pdf 267,380 3.8%.dat 261,327 3.8%.bmp 205,196 3.0%[no extension] 145,188 2.1%.htm 127,040 1.8%.csv 122,460 1.8%.tab 114,214 1.6%.gif 107,789 1.5%.map 9,2,94 1.3%.id 88,654 1.3%.ppt 86,234 1.2%.xml 73,395 1.1%

Total files with all extensions above 4,877,808 70.1%

Total files with all other extensions 2,076,451 29.9%

HOUSING

MANAGING EQUIPMENT &

SUPPLIESSmartstore

CONTRACTORSSaffronTASK

OptiTimeCAT

FairPay

MANAGING CONDITION

SaffronHousing Disrepair

Decent HomesVoids

Archibus

PROPERTIESSaffron

Stock dbLease db

Voids

TENANTSSaffron

LEASEHOLDERSSaffron

Lease dbCedAr

REGISTERED SOCIAL

LANDLORDSPerformance

PAYING INVOICES

CATCedAr

FairPay

MANAGINGSaffron

CATTASK

OptiTimeFairPay

REPAIRING, MAINTAINING &

IMPROVINGCAT

TASKOptiTimeSaffron

GAS REPAIRSJobTrack

Inspections

CLEANINGEstate Cleaning

INSURINGLACHS

LEASESSaffron

Lease dbCAT

APPLICANTSSaffron

CURRENT TENANTS

Saffron

PREVIOUS TENANTS

Saffron

REVIEWING STOCK

Stock Condition

COLLECTINGRENT

AcademySaffron

PAPER TENANCY

AGREEMENTS

ALLOCATING ACCOMMODATION

SaffronChoice-Based

Lettings System

PROCESSING APPLICATIONS

Saffron

CHARGING

HOMELESS & EMERGENCY

APPLICANTSSaffron

CHARGINGSaffronCedArCAT

STRATEGIC HOUSING

SaffronCedarM3 PP

EMPLOYEESResourcelink

ETADSAttendance Monitoring

LIS Time Reporting

DOCUMENTATION AND REPORTINGEstate-Based Reporting

Finance ReportingRepQuery

CPA

ICT SYSTEMSSUPPORT & ASSET

MANAGEMENTTouchpaper

Quantitative info on size and date

Same info in different databases

Quantitative info on file numbers and extensions


Physical model outputs

Storing the information about each collection of content identified in the inventory: here’s it’s captured as XML and presented in SharePoint so it can be easily referenced, viewed from different perspectives and updated. The sub-collections contain the real detail.


The domain model

At the same time we need to get a clear picture of the scope and nature of the content in terms of conceptual coverage.

• What are the entities and concepts that the organization cares about, and which its information is therefore about?

• What are the relationships between those entities and concepts?


Why is a domain model important?

• It serves as a mechanism to support a shared understanding of the scope and nature of the area under discussion.

• It provides a view of the content, its context and its users that is independent of any system implementation.

• It also supports the taxonomist in his/her thinking about all the different kinds of concepts and themes that the ontology or taxonomy will need to cover.


Creating a domain model

• Identify the top level entities in the domain based on the organization’s vision and mission, and testing against sample content

• Begin to create associations (relationships) between the entities

• Review the model with relevant representatives in the organization

• Revise the model based on the discussions - this is the point of the model.


An entity is something we want to store data about.

Entities are usually things like products, people, locations, organisations, or events, but only some of those will be of importance to a particular organisation: product is a key entity for the jigsaw manufacturer, but wouldn't be so important in the field of education (which would care about students, teachers, universities, courses etc).

What do we mean by entity?


- they help us understand what the domain is about (ie the area that we're interested in) and the relationships between different aspects of the domain;

- they may indicate useful groupings of content (eg everything related to products can be stored in one place);

- they will suggest the kinds of metadata you need to support findability;

- their properties help us to join up information (eg the name and ID of the product can be used in database and also as metadata on a document, so I can be sure of finding all the information about the product whether it's in the database or in a document).

Entities are important because….

Makers

Guitars

Guitar players

Equipment

make

play

use

Example 1: simple model for a hobby website about guitars

Plants

Gardening tools

Gardens

Gardeners

Gardening books

are about

are about

contain

work in

use

Example 2: simple model for a gardening website

Example 3: more complex – for publishing content related to driving*

Vehicles

Motoring

Roads

Environment

People

Course, tests and

qualifications

Road signs

Authorities

do activity

take tests

need licence

grant licence

run on roads

takes place in

has

act withinlie within approve

must act on

create

* Example relationships only

Example 4: Enterprise content relating to conservation*

* Example relationships only


‘As is’ modelling is important because….

Now you know what your content is in terms of:

• Quantities• Format• Location• Date• Permissions• Subject coverage


‘As is’ modelling is important because….

Unless you know what you’ve got…• How can you organise it?

• How can you manage it?

• How can you know what kind of systems are needed?

• How can you know what to keep?

• How can you devise good approaches to finding stuff?

Too many organisations implement IM solutions without knowing any of this!

That’s like building an animal enclosure without knowing if you are housing ants, fish or lions…

? ? ?

information landscapes – modelling your information assets (part 1 – as is)

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