By Carla Mulley
Is the problem the end user, or the organization? Manual metadata tagging, even if using drop-down boxes for assistance will fail. Because we are human, the metadata will be inconsistent (you say potato, I say potahto), subjective, and costly. It is proven that end users will select the first value in a drop down box for assigning metadata. There is no perceived value to the end user in correctly assigning the metadata, it may not necessarily be attributed to ‘malicious’ behavior, but an end user may be in a hurry, pre-occupied, or for whatever reason, just doesn’t care.
Semantic metadata generation can be achieved with add-on tools and with few exceptions are not a feature found in a search engine. These tools learn from documents to become more accurate in making their determinations. Metadata is used in both auto-classification and text analytics. Depending on the sophistication of the tools, end user tagging can be eliminated.
According to IDC, less than 50% of content is correctly indexed, meta tagged or efficiently searchable. Think of a records strategy that didn’t depend on everyone in the organization doing a little extra work to classify a document, with a high potential of error, and at an average cost of $4 – $7 dollars per document. Think of a Records Strategy that works even when a document is saved in the “wrong” place and can’t be found when needed.
Semantic metadata generation and auto-classification ensures all your content is categorized and protected so that an eDiscovery request can be met in days, the organization is protected from non-compliance, hefty fines, and security at the content level can be used to avert data breaches. It isn’t just about search.
(If you have a few minutes and use SharePoint or Office 365, could you kindly take our metadata survey? You could win a free conference pass to Microsoft Ignite. We would greatly appreciate it)
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