Simmons Workshop: Taxonomies and Controlled Vocabularies

Hedden Information Management

Simmons College
Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS)
Continuing Education Online Workshops

Taxonomies and Controlled Vocabularies

Workshop Description
Workshop Outline
Registration
Continuing Education/Professional Development
Simmons GSLIS Online Workshops site (external link)

Next sessions: November 1 - December 6, 2008 (filled)

Febraury 1 - March 7, 2009

Workshop Description

Taxonomies are becoming popular for organizing information in business knowledge management, enterprise content management systems, and intranets. Are these taxonomies different from literature retrieval thesauri? How does one go about creating a taxonomy? This online workshop will provide recommended best practices for how to create terms, relationships, and variants for different kinds of taxonomies or controlled vocabularies, and will also introduce different software tools for doing so.

Whether you need to create a taxonomy to organize information on a web site, classify information in a content management system, establish a controlled vocabulary for a periodical or database indexing project, or simply understand how to use taxonomies better, this workshop will get you on your way.

Workshop Outline

Lesson 1: Introduction to taxonomies

Definitions of taxonomy, controlled vocabularies, thesauri, etc.
Types and applications of taxonomies and controlled vocabularies (with links to examples)
Controlled vocabulary displays and organization: A-Z, hierarchies, categories, and facets

Lesson 2: Software for creating taxonomies

Over view of the different kinds of software tools
MultiTes
WebChoir TCS-10
Term Tree 2000
Freeware: TheW32 and Protégé
Distributed team software: Synaptica, Data Harmony Thesaurus Master, Wordmap

(Students are encouraged to download free or demo software of their choice to use for practice thesaurus creation in lessons 3 and 4.)

Lesson 3: Hierarchical structure and term relationships

Broader/narrower relationships
Related/associated relationships and complex variations (ontologies)
Issues in determining top level terms/facets and issues deciding on hierarchy depth and broadness

Lesson 4: Wording of terms and their variants

Issues in wording terms (style and format, pre- vs. post-coordination, homonyms)
Coming up with variants/nonpreferred terms
Differences in term names and variants needed for human vs. automated indexing; and for thesaurus vs. hierarchy vs. facets.

Lesson 5: Concluding topics and issues

Processes for taxonomy development and implementation
Taxonomy governance (ownership and maintenance)
Folksonomies or social tagging
Types of work and freelancing
Resources

Registration

Download the registration form for Simmons GSLIS Continuing Education workshops. (It is OK to use the spring form for the fall workshop.) Fill it out, specifying the session month (November) and format (online), and mail it with your payment (checks or cash only) for $250 made out to “Simmons College” to:

Kris Liberman, Program Manager
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
The Office of Continuing Education
Simmons College
300 The Fenway
Boston, MA 02115-5898
P: 617-521-2803
F: 617-521-3192
gslisce@simmons.edu

If your employer is paying for the workshop, please send in (or fax) your completed registration form with a notation “employer to send payment.”

Continuing Education/Professional Development

All enrolled attendees will receive a Certificate of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for one unit, which will be mailed to them after the workshop.

Simmons College provides Professional Development Points (PDPs) according to the Massachusetts Department of Education requirements for certification revised as of 7/1/00. Attendees who request PDPs for (re)certification will earn 15 PDPs for this month-long workshop