The goal of this workshop is to talk about metadata in an organizational website. Participants will distinguish between effective categories and tags and go through three different exercises to help define a common taxonomy.

1. What’s in a label? Leveraging
Categories and Tags for
Orientation and Retrieval
UNC School of Government
Website Workshop Series,
March 2014
Stefanie Panke

2. Metadata
• Keywords, Tags: Usually
assigned to describe a
single resource, dynamic,
as many as needed
• Categories: Usually
assigned to describe more
than one resource, stable,
limited vocabulary
Result:
Index
Result:
Taxonomy

3. Taxonomy
• Tree structure
• Strict taxonomy:
Every item has one
exact place
• Related concept:
Ontology – multiple,
interconnected
trees

4. Direct Display of Information

5. Categories: Information Containers
Useful for organizing large
amounts of data

6. Website: 19 categories

7. Bookstore: 21 categories

8. Status Quo: Multiple, Different,
Overlapping Category Systems

9. In Search of the Rosetta Stone
The Goal: Harmonize different sets of
categories to create functional vocabulary
• speak to faculty, staff
and clients / web users
• allow for effective information
display in more than one place

10. Categorize Resource Sites

11. Categorize Resource Sites: Round 1
• Form 9 Teams (1-2)
• Each team categorizes 5 resource sites
• Each team assigns 10 categories (2 per
resource)
• Time: 5 Minutes!

12. Categorize Resource Sites: Round 2
• Switch resource sites between team
• Assign 10 categories (2 per resource), only if
needed
• Time: 5 Minutes!

13. Review Categories
• Review Mindmaps / Index Cards
• Put a sticker on every category you want to
see as part of a School of Government
Taxonomy
• Use small colorful stickers for subcategories
• Use large blue stickers for main categories
• Time: 20 Minutes

14. Index Cards
Sticker = Term Part of School of Government
Taxonomy
Don’t worry about duplicates!

15. Taxonomy on the fly
Shout out categories, we will document on the fly