DCMI 2003 Pre-Conference Workshop: Metadata and Search

1©2003 Louis Rosenfeld LLC. All rights reserved.

DCMI 2003 Pre-Conference Workshop: Metadata and Search

DC-2003Seattle, WashingtonSeptember 28, 2003

Louis Rosenfeldwww.louisrosenfeld.com


I Am…

Information architecture (IA) consultant; formerly president Argus Associates

Co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (1998, 2002)

Co-founder and Director, Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture (www.aifia.org)

Background in librarianship/information science; Fortune 500 bias


Metadata:The Post-Cathartic Perspective

“Meta-data is not just about structured data anymore.”-- Robert Seiner

Publisher, The Data Administration

Newsletter

(http://www.tdan.com/i024fe01.htm, 4/03)


Metadata:The Weary Soldier’s Perspective

“I've decided that good metadata is too expensive for most documents. If you can get an effective title and date on all your important documents, you should declare victory and go out for a beer.”

-- Walter Underwood

Principal Architect, Verity Ultraseek

(Personal communication, 9/03)


Metadata: The All-Too-Common Perspective

“Our information management and access problems will be solved by push search engine personalization CMS implementation metadata.”-- Anonymous CIO

MegacorpSometime during the

Early Web Age


Diagnosis: A malady called Silverbulletitis

Common affliction among senior managers

Evidenced by • Single-minded preoccupation with a

specific technology or approach• Belief that such an approach comprises a

solution• Constant presence of product literature,

pens, mugs, plush toys, and other assorted vendor schwag


Metadata as Silver Bullet:Think again

Inter-cataloger inconsistency (Medline study)

Approximately 10% of humanly assigned index terms do not occur in full text; worth the investment to address?

Structural interoperability of metadata attributes (DC can help)

Semantic merging of metadata values (significant challenge)


Metadata in Business Setting:Think again

Business cultures not used to cooperating

Time on task: e.g., six minutes per document X 1M documents = 62.5 FTE for one year

Lack of best practices for centralized services (e.g., tagging)

Lack of robust tools for metadata management (whither MMS?)

Lack of expertise: non-pros doing the work


Metadata: Part of the AnswerAvailable from: http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/images/EIAroadmap.pdf


So Where and When Should We Apply Metadata?

Begs more questions1. For which content should we develop and

apply metadata?

2. How qualified/experienced are those who own content/apply that metadata?

3. Which metadata attributes should we develop?

4. Which metadata vocabularies should be controlled?


Selecting Content for Metadata: The Value Tier ApproachDetermine value tiers of content quality

that make sense given your users/content/context

How to do it?1.Prioritize and weight quality criteria for

different content areas2.Rate content areas (subjectively and

objectively)3.Cluster into tiers


The Value Tier Approach:Potential quality criteria

Select appropriate criteria for your business context, users, and content• Authority• Strategic value • Currency• Freshness• Usability• Popularity/usage• Feasibility• Presence of quality existing metadata


Value Tier Approach:Weighting and scoring


Value Tier Approach:Prioritization


Content Workflow:Process and ownership

Evaluate content management centralization, owner sophistication

Integrate results into content value tiers


Attribute Selection:Match content, appropriate subset


Controlled Vocabularies:CV or not CV?


Contact Information

Louis Rosenfeld LLC902 Miller AvenueAnn Arbor, Michigan 48103 USA

[email protected]

+1.734.663.3323 voice+1.734.661.1655 fax

DCMI 2003 Pre-Conference Workshop: Metadata and Search

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