that's not what i meant! - fran alexander
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THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!identifying, clarifying and brokering consensus over taxonomy terms and keywords
Fran Alexander, Taxonomy Manager, Information and Archives, BBC@franglehttp://www.vocabcontrol.com
*All views expressed here are entirely my own personal views and in no way represent the BBC or official BBC policy.
BBC Archive Centre
2 million items of TV and video300,000 hours of audio6 million still photographs4 million pieces of sheet music500,000 documents
4,000 loans per week
divided by a common language – the problem with wordsus and them – categories and communitiessemantic politics – brokering consensus
classification migration projectSharepoint projectontology project
top tips
Overview
4
ORANGE
Apple, Orange, Blackberry, Next!
He's a real dog
What are the odds?
• trumpet
• violin
• French horn
• trombone
• London
• China
• Brazil
• France
• French
• Spanish
• Hebrew
• Italian
• record
• object
• entity
• archive
• archive
• backup
• record
• library
• spook
• entity
• ghoul
• fairy
Top-down or bottom-up?
traditional classifications were made by subdivision of pre-set classes
modern taxonomies tend to work by clustering or grouping
more flexible systems, more closely related to reality, but need to understand users, viewpoints, contexts
Content engineers
Content Metadata
(tag)
Parametadata – “Meta-metadata”
Creator Taxonomy Date Approved
Wildlife programme
Canis lupus Researcher Telclass (specialist taxonomy)
4/4/11 JP
Wolves Production assistant
BBC free tag 3/3/11 -
Grey wolf sleeping
Cataloguer Lonclass (archival taxonomy)
14/4/11 JP
/archives /archives team Special collections tag 12/1/11 JR
Canidae Natural History Museum
NHM taxonomy 11/6/11 CC
Wolf-spotting on holiday with Bob
Member of public
Free tag/folksonomy 12/4/11 _
Japanese hon
“the Japanese classifier ‘Hon’ classifies long thinobjects; sticks canes, pencils, candles, trees, ropes,hair, etc. it can also be used to classify dead snakesand dried fish, with are long and thin. But it alsoincludes:
martial arts contests with staffs or swords hits in baseball serves in volleyball and rallies in pingpong judo matches roles of tape telephone calls (which come over long thin
wires) radio and TV programs (like phone calls, but
without the wires) letters (scrolls are thin) films (because they’re like tape) injections
l
Dyirbal classification
Bayi: men, kangaroos, possums, bats, mostsnakes, most fish, some birds, most insects, themoon, storms, rainbows, boomerangs
Balan: women, bandicoots, dogs, platypus,echidna, some snakes, some fish, most birds,fireflies, scorpions, crickets, the hairy mary grub,anything connected with water or fire, sun andstars
Balam: all edible fruit and the plants that bearthem, ferns, honey, cigarettes, wine, cake
Bala: parts of the body, meat, bees, wind,yamsticks, some spears, most trees, grass, mud,stones, noises, language.
Borges Celestial emporium of benevolent knowledge
“… on those pages it is written that animals aredivided into (a) those that belong to the emperor, (b)embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d)suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous one, (g) straydogs, (h) those that are included in this classification,(i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j)innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very finecamel’s hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have justbroken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble fliesfrom a distance.”
Sorted
meanings of words and labels – how to make sure these are clear
users' language communities, basic categories, contexts – how to understand their viewpoints
practical methods to help you make decisions
19
How enterprising
Everybody counts
How do you run a card sort with a million terms?
How do you user test with 20,000 users?
Taking samples
selected representatives from different communitiesran a workshop on high level categoriestop-down and bottom-up - mixed approachsections assigned to editor/s and SMEsall-editors regular discussion sessions user feedback and iterative changes
What's your point?
navigation?toolkit?mandatory or suggested?complete or selected?
Nice figure
command-and-control?help and support?
existing structures existing workflows
and processes
Top models
Class act
think about scope, purpose, users
simplification – what can be ignored
shared understanding may be more than just getting labels right
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ontologies/programmes/2009-09-07.shtml
My domain is your kingdom
what is the same as something else?
what is Paris? an area, a city, a location in a film, an administrative district
does London include Stansted, Gatwick, and Luton?
what happens if we get this wrong?
Notice
understand how fuzzy language can bethink precisely and clearly learn to spot “danger” wordsbecome “conversational negotiators”don’t underestimate how long you should
spend checking definitions with usersdon’t underestimate importance of iteration
– even ripping up and starting againmore people you involve, better able to get a
clear view of an areaknow when to stop and just decide
Find fault
label errorspuns, jokes, word games – to identify slippery words
arguments and points of failure – indicate lack of shared understanding
search logs, analytics, questionnaires
be consistent in your own use of language
category errorsmiscellaneous – change categories?
frequent category errors by users - change categories?
domain errorsnever be afraid to question shared understanding
if you and your team don’t know how it is supposed to work then no-one else will!
RefsAlexander, F. (2012) Building bridges: Linking diverse classification schemes as part of a technology change project, Journal of Business Information Review, vol. 29 no. 2, pp. 87-94. http://bir.sagepub.com/content/29/2/87.abstract
Alexander, F. (2012) Assessing information taxonomies using epistemology andthe sociology of science, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 68, Issue 5. DOI: 10.1108/00220411211256058 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0022-0418&volume=68&issue=5&articleid=17036853&show=pdfAlexander, F. (2009) Trying to please everyone: The taxonomist as politician. http://bit.ly/gC7MiWBorges, J. L. (1942) The Analytical Language of John Wilkins (El idioma analítico de John Wilkins). Bowker, G. and Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Brown, J. S. and Duguid, P. (2000). The Social Life of Information. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Lambe, P. (2007). Organising Knowledge: Taxonomies. Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness. Olson, H. (2002). The Power to Name.Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity.
In credit
Labels:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsmagic/5870198525/
Moo cards: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philgyford/247592709/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Concert Crowd (Osheaga 2009): http://www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/3786725982/sizes/l/in/photostream/