How Semantic Tagging Increases Findability
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SemanticTagging 1/29/09 4:41 PM Page 38 also featured Review PAGE 21 Data Audits for Content Security PAGE 32 X1 PROFESSIONAL CLIENT How Semantic Tagging Increases Findability PAGE 38 Case Study PAGE 45 A CASE OF DOCUMENT—AND content news ORGANIZATIONWIDE—COLLABORATION Bizo Means Business: Tackling the Ad-Targeting Dilemma PAGE 12 Semantra 2.5 Searches for Business Intelligence PAGE 14 This article is reprinted with permission from EContent magazine, October, 2008. © Online, a division of Information Today, Inc. Heather Hedden How SEMANTIC TAGGING Increases Findability indability is about making information easier to find. After all, if it cannot be found, it may as well not exist. Leading information specialists have been saying this for years, and now with the increasing F volume of content and increasing pressures of time, money, and competition, more of us are finding this statement to be true. In addition to traditional controlled vocabulary-based indexing, information architecture has evolved to make browsing and navigation methods more effective, search engine capabilities have been improving to help us find the proverbial needle in the haystack, and bookmarking and social tagging have emerged to help us find our own content, and that we share with members of a social networking group. The various methods of enhancing findability each have their limitations. Traditional document indexing/material cataloging and web information architecture do not go deep enough. Indexing is usually at the document level, and cataloging only works on the level of the material as a whole (books, sound recordings, video recordings, etc.). Information architecture aids in the navigation of a website, intranet, or portal, but in itself it is often not 1 WWW. ECONTENTMAG. COM SemanticTagging 1/29/09 4:41 PM Page 39 SemanticTagging 1/29/09 4:42 PM Page 40 How Semantic Tagging Increases Findability Alexander Street Press LLC has developed highly structured facets of tags for The Alexander Street Press’ highly specific tag categories for Early Encounters plays and scenes. in North America sufficient for finding specific information. different things to people coming from documents, to reflect the meaning of Search engines match user-entered key- different parts of the information man- the content. Human subject indexing is words and phrases to those found agement field. It may be used inter- inherently semantic, because human within the texts or metatag fields of changeably with “semantic indexing” in indexers can discern the meaning of documents, but these are still just word contexts where “indexing” is used for content. This has been done by periodical matches and do not necessarily go after “tagging.” Nevertheless, in the quest for and other database index publishers for the meaning of a document. For example, better methods of findability, the term decades. Once the domain of large many words are quite ambiguous, and semantic tagging is starting to appear in database publishing companies (H.W. search results would not be accurate on descriptions of information services and Wilson, ProQuest, Gale, EBSCO, etc.), words such as “state,” “log,” or “screen”— products, blogs, online articles, and pre- more affordable client/server and desktop even in combination with other words. sentations. software for taxonomy management, Social tagging only involves files or web- indexing, and web database publishing pages that the user and colleagues have SEMANTIC TAGGING IN PUBLISHED have enabled publishers of all sizes to already viewed or created. More signifi- INDEXES engage in this form of semantic indexing. cantly, though, social tagging tends to “Semantic information … enables Meanwhile, the growing popularity of suffer from inconsistent application of publishers to distinguish their content social tagging has made users more aware tags, such as using both synonyms from their competitors,’” explains Bill of the value of subject terms that reflect (movie, motion picture, film), singular/ Kasdorf of Apex CoVantage, organizer/ the meaning of a piece of content in plural forms, and abbreviations moderator of a preconference seminar comparison-free text word/phrase search. (Corporation/ Corp., information/info). on semantic tagging at the Society for Nevertheless, there are publishers that New techniques and tools are being Scholarly Publishing’s (SSP) annual consider semantic tagging to be something developed to address the shortcomings of conference this May in Boston. “In more than mere controlled vocabulary- these various approaches to finding infor- addition, great progress has been made based human indexing; they are pursuing mation and to deliver better results in an recently in moving semantics beyond the new techniques. This was evident in increasingly competitive information theoretical: Actual publishers are actually the participation in the SSP Boston industry. “Semantic tagging,” in the various doing it, and they'reactually getting real conference’s semantic tagging seminar, ways that it is understood, is a term that benefits from it.” Say What You Mean: How Semantic describes many of these new (and some Some people would argue that semantic Tagging Makes Content More Discoverable, not-so-new) findability approaches. tagging is nothing new. It can be defined More Useful, and More Valuable. Semantic tagging is by no means an as the assigning of selected controlled One way that semantic indexing is accepted concept with an agreed upon vocabulary (aka taxonomy) terms, distinguished from traditional subject definition. Other than the obvious “tagging especially by trained indexers, to content indexing of documents is that it focuses for meaning,” semantic tagging means items, such as articles, images, or other on concepts rather than the documents 3 WWW. ECONTENTMAG. COM SemanticTagging 1/29/09 4:42 PM Page 41 Silverchair search results, indexed to the chapter subsection level and utilitizing a structured taxonomy According to Zarnegar, “Tagging should be done at the smallest ‘atomic’ level that can stand on its own if taken out.” Whether the original source is a book, article, or pamphlet, subject indexing is often done to the paragraph level. SEMANTIC TAGGING IN SEARCH Turning to the area of automated as a whole. Panel presenter Stephen that precisely captures each subject in its search and retrieval, enterprise search Rhind-Tutt, president of Alexander Street appropriate facet. engines, content management systems, Press, LLC, explained that semantic Another way that semantic indexing is and related discovery and data mining indexing can answer complex questions distinguished from traditional subject products that do not utilize human of who, what, and when, such as “What indexing of documents is that it focuses indexing, semantic tagging obviously battles during the Civil War resulted in on pieces of content at a finer, granular plays a smaller role. Nevertheless, some more than 1,000 deaths?” Regular level rather than the documents as a of these vendors claim to offer semantic indexing merely answers the question whole. This is an approach taken by capabilities. In the competitive enterprise “What documents discuss this battle?” medical research database developer search space, new technologies are often Specialized and multilevel facets (or Silverchair, as explained by its CTO Jake based on either autocategorization metadata, depending on your perspective) Zarnegar: “We apply semantic tags at (automatic indexing/tagging) or various of controlled vocabularies can be imple- any change of topic or concept in the text analytics techniques, such as pattern mented to support semantically complex data at any level—including articles, recognition or entity extraction. Most of user queries, as done by humanities sections, paragraphs, tables, figures, text analytics is not semantic because it publisher Alexander Street Press. Its equations, sidebars, videos, etc. Many does not discern the meaning of words, database of theatrical plays is indexed by taxonomic tagging systems deal with the but rather may classify words by part of the top-level facets, including playwright entire data entity as one unit.” Using its speech (grammar). Various forms of data, theater data, specific production data, internally developed TOTEM taxonomy autocategorization, on the other hand, theater company information, character management platform, Silverchair inserts may or may not have a degree of characteristics, scene data, and play text taxonomy tags into the XML content. semantic technology involved. data. Its Early Encounters in North America history database has nine controlled vocabularies, including author, source, year, place environment, flora, fauna, encounter, people, personal event, and cultural event. Setting up the controlled vocabulary and facets requires one to “go into the data and ask ‘what are the latent semantic issues that will be asked’ … This needs to be discipline specific,” according to Rhind-Tutt. Finally, the content searched with faceted taxonomies and supporting interfaces needs to be sufficiently struc- tured with metadata, tagging, or indexing Collexis Holdings’ Research Profiles database with weighted subjects indicated in bar graphs O CTOBER 2008 ECONTENT 4 SemanticTagging 1/29/09 4:42 PM Page 42 How Semantic Tagging Increases Findability Companies Featured in This Article statistical approaches including frequency, in niche service areas. For example, uniqueness, and data field location (such Relevad, whose tagline is “semantic Alexander