At last month’s Knowledge Graph Conference, in addition to knowledge graphs and graph databases, there is a growing interest in ontologies, but the role of taxonomies does not seem so well understood. For example, in one presentation I attended, it was said “you get synonyms/alternative labels into a knowledge graph…
Author: Heather Hedden
Hierarchies and Attributes in Taxonomies
One of the challenges in creating hierarchical taxonomies is that there can be multiple ways to categorize concepts and thus design hierarchies. There are multiple methods to deal with this, including polyhierarchy and facets. Now that taxonomies are more often extended with ontologies, attributes can also be used for additional…
Taxonomy Boot Camp London 2026
I was thrilled to participate in the Taxonomy Boot Camp London conference, which was in-person in London this past month for the first time since 2019. A sister conference to Taxonomy Boot Camp in the United States, which has been running since 2005, Taxonomy Boot Camp London had been running…
Taxonomy Sources: Re-Used, Licensed, or AI-Generated
Taxonomies published from external sources are best used for content from external sources. An AI-generated taxonomy, after human review and editing, is usually a better solution than a licensed taxonomy that was created for a different purpose
What a Taxonomy is Not
Although taxonomies have become increasingly common within enterprises and on websites, they are not always well understood. Taxonomies are sometimes confused with other knowledge organizations systems, such as classification systems, website navigation schemes, business glossaries, or ontologies A taxonomy is a controlled, structurally organized set of unambiguous concepts, which may…
Taxonomy Benefits Over an Ontology
In a recent conversation based on a LinkedIn post, someone asked “Why choose a taxonomy over an ontology?” This is a good question, since there has been a growing understanding that ontologies build upon taxonomies by adding more semantics, which enable additional benefits. I have presented at conferences on the…
Schema Vocabularies and Value Vocabularies
Taxonomies and thesauri can be considered value vocabularies, in contrast to metadata schema and standards, which are considered schema vocabularies.
Types of Metadata Schemas
Taxonomies or sets of controlled vocabularies are typically implemented as values for various metadata elements (also called metadata properties or fields). Metadata elements that contain controlled vocabularies could be Topic, Activity, Location, Organization Name, People/Role Type, Document Type, Content Language, etc. These are often implemented as facets in faceted search,…
Semantic Data Conference 2025
This week I attended the second annual conference “SemanticData: Taxonomy, Ontology, and Knowledge Graphs,” hosted by Henry Stewart (HS) Events and co-located with the HS DAM (Digital Asset Management) conference. I found this conference to be very worthwhile to attend, even without presenting, for its networking opportunities and ideas shared.…
Narrower Terms vs. Alternative Terms
A narrower concept could be either a variant term or a hierarchically narrower term.