In-Person Conference Taxonomy Workshops

Organizer: LavaCon Conference
Date/Time: Sunday, October 27, 2024, 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Location: Portland Hilton Downtown, Portland, Oregon (in-person only)

To make the most of content, the right content needs to be found by or delivered to the right people at the right time. Taxonomies are key to this process, connecting users to content by bringing to together the terms of the users with the terms in the content. Thus, taxonomies need to be custom built with input from the users and from the content, in a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches.

This workshop discusses methods and best practices for building taxonomies, whether for marketing content, technical content, or internal enterprise content. Methods include workshops, interviews, content analysis, and text extraction. Best practices include following standards for hierarchical relationships, using suitable labels and synonyms for taxonomy concepts, and using the right taxonomy structures. The workshop includes interactive exercises of hierarchical relationship and alternative label creation.

Outline:

• Why Taxonomies & Tagging
• Benefits & Challenges of Taxonomies
• Types of Taxonomies
• Taxonomy Standards
• Sources for Taxonomy Concepts
• Wording of Concept Labels
• Alternative Labels
• Taxonomy Relationships
• Taxonomy Governance
• Tagging with a Taxonomy
• Taxonomies in Semantic Layers

In this workshop attendees will:

• Understand the benefits and challenges of taxonomies
• Know the suitable type of taxonomy or knowledge organization system to create
• Become familiar with taxonomy standards and how to use them
• Know the varied sources and how to gather taxonomy concepts
• Be able to form concepts with preferred and alternative labels
• Be able to properly construct hierarchical and nonhierarchical relationships
• Understand taxonomy governance sufficiently to implement
• Know different methods for tagging or classifying with a taxonomy
• Understand the options for taxonomy management system
  

Registration and costs

As a pre-conference workshop, it is required to be registered for the full LavaCon conference on content strategy, October 28 – 30, which is $2,450. Use discount code PC24 for $250 off.

The 4-hour pre-conference workshop is an additional $200.
Register here

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Ontologies form the semantic framework for linking data within knowledge graphs, but users often start their queries with subjects, which they may describe inconsistently. This is where a taxonomy is useful: bringing together synonyms and other variant names and arranging concepts in user-friendly browsable hierarchies or facets. A taxonomy, whether considered part of an ontology or connected to an ontology, is thus an important part of a knowledge graph. Furthermore, taxonomy concepts are designed and implemented to be tagged to content, thus extending the scope of a knowledge graph to include not just data but also varied relevant content (documents, media, etc.)

While taxonomies are easier to design and create than ontologies, too often they are created without any skill or training. In other cases, taxonomies originally designed for a different purpose are inappropriately reused. Poorly designed or inappropriate taxonomies yield poor results.

This tutorial will cover the basics and best practices in taxonomy design, including standards, sources for topical concepts, wording of labels, alternative labels, hierarchical and associative relationships, and governance. How taxonomists connect to ontologies will also be discussed.

Outline:

• Introduction to taxonomies and other types of controlled vocabularies
• Standards and models for taxonomies
• Sources for taxonomy concepts
• Wording of concept labels and alternative labels
• Taxonomy hierarchical and associative relationships
• AI and LLMs in taxonomy development
• Taxonomy and ontology comparisons and connections
• Tools for managing combined taxonomies-ontologies

In this workshop attendees will:

• Recognize where and when taxonomies are needed.
• Know what resources to use in developing or editing a taxonomy.
• Know the basics of creating good taxonomies or modifying existing taxonomies to enhance their knowledge graphs.
  

Registration and costs

Register here at £180 for the single masterclass; £600 for the full day of 4 masterclasses; £300 remote full day of 4 masterclasses; or register for the full 3-day conference at at £1,800.