Benefits of using taxonomies

Many public sector organisations have yet to make best use of corporate taxonomies. This Taxonomies in the Public Sector paper is written to assist those in organisations who are making the case for the adoption of a taxonomy, and can be adapted for the circumstances of a particular organisation.

The first part gives arguments to use with staff who are not information or records management specialists, in the form of brief bullet points; the second gives further detailed references for specialist staff, including quotes on various aspects from central government departments who already use taxonomies

Why does my organisation need a taxonomy?

What do we mean by 'taxonomy'?

A taxonomy is a system for naming and organising things into groups that show similar characteristics. 'Things' can be documents, staff, spares, or anything else that you deal with. Everyday examples are the classification of businesses in Yellow Pages, so that all the plumbers are shown together, and the directory on the BBC website, so you can quickly go to revision guides for 11 to 16 year olds. Taxonomies were first used in the biological sciences, showing the links between living organisms, but the idea is now widely used in other areas

What is the advantage in having a taxonomy?

A taxonomy helps you do things you'd like to do:

• It can reduce learning times as staff can assume common structure in different areas, making it easier for them to be more flexible
• You can assume common information structures when designing new content management and document management systems, reducing the separate investment needed.
• Collaborative working is made easier, as like items are grouped together throughout the organisation.
• You can automate knowledge sharing more readily, as computer programs can select things with the same attached terms more easily than they can analyse their content.

A taxonomy helps you do things you have to do:

• It enables you to comply with mandatory public sector data standards that assist wider information sharing.
• It can help identify subjects for release in response to Freedom of Information Act or Data Protection Act enquiries, reducing the burden of satisfying these.
• It can give consistency in reporting across the organisation, as agreed definitions are being used by different sections
• It can speed the review of organisation records by enabling those that should be retained for longer to be identified.

What do you need to do to have a taxonomy?

You will need some initial investment to design and install a taxonomy that fits your organisation: some of the building blocks may already be in place. If you have many functions in common with similar organisations you may be able to adapt their taxonomies. You will have to ensure that terms are added to all new items, either automatically or by staff, and that mechanisms are in place to quality assure these terms and maintain the taxonomy.

The effort in adding terms is in advance of their being used as a finding aid, but will pay off over time.

Additional notes for information and records specialists

A more rigorous definition of a taxonomy is:

"A structured vocabulary using classificatory principles as well as thesaural features, designed as a navigation tool for use with electronic media. Taxonomies are most commonly used with electronic portals and web sites. The vocabulary may be presented standing alone, or as a directory in which the class labels are linked to documents or references, or as part of an application for tagging electronic resources with the appropriate metadata".

•  working paper for draft of BS8723

References on taxonomies

A bibliography on metadata and thesauri by Stella Dextre-Clarke is at http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/metadata_document.asp?docnum=940 and includes sections on "definitions" and "making the case for using taxonomies".

Some points which have been made by other public sector organisations (mainly in central government) include:

•  Subject access could be simultaneously provided to all these information resources.. Taxonomy allows information to be shared across the organisation ( Dept of Health )

•  a common vocabulary - that can be used for searching and indexing documents throughout the organisation (Home Office)

•  Consistency - everybody speaking the same language( Dept of Health )

•  Ability to find your information and other business units' information resources more easily across the many .repositories.( Ministry Of Defence )

•  To bring consistency in the terminology presented to the users of web portals, internet and intranet web sites - creating a common look and feel to different applications, and this will improve communication between different sectors of the community.( Ministry Of Defence )

•  improved access to information - through the structuring and classifying of information which enables easier navigation of content and facilitates more effective location of relevant information ;
improved collaboration and communication - through the development and use of a common language across the organisation ; (Home Office)

•  Flexibility - allows indexing and searching by different user groups with different needs. In practice some users would generally only use certain sections of the taxonomy ( Dept of Health )

•  assist decision and policy making - by ensuring all relevant information is easily and quickly retrieved; (Home Office)

•  To collectively contribute to and develop a virtual corporate memory that can be utilised and shared .( Ministry Of Defence ) -

•  Increase the awareness and knowledge of business activities across the wider .community.( Ministry Of Defence )

•  To use an agreed and understood high-level business language to reduce misunderstandings and potential business pitfalls( Ministry Of Defence )

•  Limitations of free text & search engines - produce too many irrelevant hits - generally agreed now that control is needed( Dept of Health )

•  The one term one concept principle gets round the problem of abbreviations, acronyms, synonyms and emerging/changing technology. All terms are listed in the thesaurus but only one term is the "preferred term" - if a user uses a different term he is automatically referred to the "preferred term". It avoids the problems that arise when different people use different terms to index documents on the same subject - i.e. searchers only get partial results. In this sense it enforces consistent indexing. As terms change, e.g. a future piece of kit is given a name, a trail is maintained between the different terms.( Ministry Of Defence )

•  Management of records in line with creation and retention requirements; ( Customs & Excise )

•  Improved integration of electronic record-keeping and wider information management with business systems, applications and technologies; ( Customs & Excise )

•  Decreased exposure to, and better management of, evidence related risks; ( Customs & Excise )

Better corporate governance

•  (allows) accountable decision-making; ( Customs & Excise )

•  Better capacity to explain actions and decisions; ( Customs & Excise )

•  Decreased costs in business dispute resolution. ( Customs & Excise )

•  Increased consistency and continuity of program delivery and policy formation; ; ( Customs & Excise )

•  Increased productivity and streamlining of business processes ; ( Customs & Excise )

•  Greater business confidence; ( Customs & Excise )

•  ensure compliance with e-Government Metadata Element Set - by ensuring availability and use of e-GMS subject metadata through mapping with the GCL. ; (Home Office)

•  To meet the requirements of the office of the e-Envoy Modernising Government to work electronically by 2005, and the vision of joined up Government services( Ministry Of Defence )

•  Compliance with cross-government objectives such as e-GIF, and transacting business via the Internet; ;( Customs & Excise )

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