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Building a taxonomy is not as easy as it may seem.  Without question, it must be developed based on research on the content and records (content warrant), itself, along with the uses of the content by the users (user warrant).  And, then, there is the important consideration of which terms should be used to reflect your structure accurately and clearly to your users.  Fortunately, a set of criteria has been identified to help you with this critical task.

Taxonomists distinguish between a concept (the idea that your taxonomy needs to contain) and a term (the verbal expression of that concept).  This is very much like our consideration of metadata elements where we understand that metadata consists of both a property and a value.

So, there are two levels of decisions to be made in building a taxonomy structure - whether it is a list, a tree, matrix or a facet - (a) which concepts need to be included and (b) which term should be the preferred term for a given concept, and which terms should be captured as synonyms, near synonyms, or alternate terms in our thesaurus that accompanies the taxonomy.

Each concept/term you consider is a candidate concept/term.  Every term you approve is a preferred orauthorized term.

The 13 criteria for term selection in your taxonomy help you decide whether a given concept, or term, should be admitted to your taxonomy.  They can help you in your initial taxonomy design, as well as in ongoing maintenance.

The criteria include:

APPROPRIACY - Is the term appropriate to the intended user communities?  For example, is it sufficiently formal or technical if a professional or technical community is intended, or sufficiently colloquial (informal, everyday) for a general user audience?

BELONGING - Does the concept fit within the coverage of the intended taxonomy structure?  For example, in a business activities facet, does the concept clearly represent an activity?  In a document types facet, does the concept or term clearly represent a distinct kind of document?

CONSISTENCY - Is the term stylistically consistent with the other terms in this taxonomy structure?  For example, in a list of names, are the names presented in a consistent format; in a facet comprised of nouns or gerunds (a noun formed from a verb), is the candidate term morphologically consistent with the other terms in the facet?

CURRENCY - Does the term reflect the most current common usage for the concept?  For example, "communicable diseases" has superseded "infectious diseases" in public health; "human resources management" has superseded "personnel management" in many organizations.

DISTINCTIVENESS - Does the term clearly represent a distinction that is important to the audience?  Does it have any overlap with an existing term in the taxonomy, in which case, new terms have to be found or the terms qualified to ensure that ambiguity is avoided and important distinctions are clearly represented?

For example, the term "orders" in a military context can cover administrative items like purchase orders, as well as operational instructions given in the course of a military engagement.  This is an important distinction between very different concepts that the terminology must clearly represent e.g.  by qualifying the terms as "operational orders" and "order forms".

IMPLICATION - Does the candidate concept or term imply additional concepts or terms?   Sometimes a proposed concept opens up the realization that there are other concepts missing from the taxonomy.   

For example, the acceptance of "project plans" to a document types facet would immediately open up the need for terms for other kinds of project management related documents.

NOVELTY - Does the proposed term refer to a concept that is not already in the taxonomy?  If the concept exists, the question is then which should be the preferred term - the newly proposed term or the existing term.  In an established taxonomy, the existing term has priority unless it is superseded under the Currency criterion.  In a new taxonomy, the question is decided on the Warrant criterion (see below).

STANDARDIZATION - Is the term part of an authorized standard vocabulary for which there is a compliance requirement?  For example, ISO 9001 has standard names for document types; HR and Finance departments have policies and guidelines that specify the names for people and money related processes, activities and documents.

STRUCTURE - Does a proposed new concept/term, along with others, warrant a new section in the taxonomy or a new facet?  This is an extension of the Implication criterion.  For example, in the application of a military taxonomy with facets for activities and document types, proposed terms for activities were frequently qualified by the technology platform the activity was conducted on, resulting in duplicated activity terms, one for each technology platform.  This resulted in the creation of a new facet for platforms which could then be used in combination with a simplified activity facet.

TECHNICAL ACCURACY - Does the term accurately reflect the intended meaning to the intended audience?  This is more important when developing a taxonomy that will be used by a specialized, technical or professional audience, and this is where feedback from subject matter experts is important.

TRANSPARENCY - Does the term transparently represent the concept to users without competing interpretations, and without the need for special explanation or training?  Sometimes, especially in technical vocabularies, you cannot achieve complete transparency through the term itself.  This is when scope notes are useful, so that users can click on the term and see what the intended meaning is.

USABILITY - Does the addition of the new term push the list of terms in that category beyond usability limits (i.e.  beyond 12-15 items)?  In this case, you'll have to reconsider breaking out a new category and redistributing your terms.

WARRANT - Can you find explicit warrant (support) for your concept/term in:

•  the targeted content to be covered by the taxonomy

•  its usage - e.g.  in observed information tasks or frequently used search terms

•  standard vocabularies for which there are compliance requirements?

User and content warrant (authority) research is especially important here.  Where there are multiple possible terms for a concept and where there is no standards-based requirement, user warrant (support) should take precedence.

Experts in building taxonomies have a solid understanding of what works and what doesn’t work in building their structures.  Now, for all of us, we have a set of criteria by which to judge the quality of our work.

Tell us about your experience in building a taxonomy at your organization.

Tell us what worked well and what didn’t work so well.

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February 12^th – 15^th, 2013  AIIM ERM Master Class in Silver Spring, MD

February 26^th – 27^th, 2013  AIIM Social Media Governance Class in Chicago, IL

March 5^th – 8^th, 2013  AIIM ECM Master Class in Amsterdam, NL