planning made all the difference: fda web taxonomy case study september 25, 2008 u.s. food and drug...

Planning Made All The Difference: FDA Web Taxonomy Case Study

September 25, 2008

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

FDA Internet Improvement Team (FIT)

Working together to create a Web site that is…

• Person-centric• Informative• Empowering• Interactive

U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationFDA Internet Improvement Team (FIT)

Overall FDA Web Taxonomy project goals

• To define a programmatic cross-functional taxonomy (classification scheme & controlled vocabularies) that supports FDA’s metadata specification and applies to FDA content overall. • Provide a single methodology for categorizing information

across FDA offices, programs and regions.• Reduce the time it takes to successfully target and find cross-

Office information.• Improve FDA’s ability to find, use, manage and publish FDA

content on the Web

• To train, guide and support FDA in testing and implementing the taxonomy.


2 Metadata Specification

3 Vocabulary Development

4 Testing

1 Discovery

Kick-off meetings (8/3)

FDA Web Taxonomy project

Extreme taxo workshop (8/14-17)

Resource Review

Strawman

Extreme Review

Revise Spec

Build-out

Review Taxo

5 Training & Guidance

8/6 8/13 8/20 8/27 9/3 10/19 10/26 11/2 11/9 11/16 11/23 11/30 12/7

Inside.FDA project FDA.gov project

Build-outReview Taxo

Revise TaxoBuild-out Review Taxo

Draft Process & Guidelines

Factsheet

First taxo workshop (10/18)

Third taxo workshop (12/11)

Finalize Taxo

Second taxo workshop (10/18)


2 Metadata Specification

3 Vocabulary Development

4 Testing

1 Discovery

FDA Web Taxonomy project (2)

5 Training & Guidance

12/14 12/21 12/28 1/4 1/11 1/18 1/23 1/30

Devise Test

Review Test

Test

Analyze Test

Taxonomy testing (12/15-16)

Finalize Taxo

Training Mats

Taxonomy Governance


FDA Taxonomy facets

Taxonomy Facet Description

Content Types Use to identify the type or genre of FDA information.

Subjects:

Activities Use to describe FDA activities, functions and/or services that the content is about or related to.

FDA Organization Use to indicate the FDA Center that the content is about or related to.

Laws Use to identify the specific law or regulation that the content is about or related to.

Diseases & Conditions Use to describe any diseases, treatments and body parts that the content is about or related to.

Regulated Products Use to identify any types of regulated products that the content is about or related to. Use Brands for specific brands of regulated products and chemical names for generic drugs.

Brands Use to identify any specific brand of regulated products that the content is about or related to. Drugs may be identified by their chemical name rather than their brand name.

Companies Use to identify any specific companies that produce regulated products that the content is about or related to.

Topics Use to describe any other topic that the content is about or related to.

Audience Use to identify the audience segments for whom the content is targeted.

Geographic Areas Use to identify any geographic area that the content covers or is related to.


FDA Taxonomy facets & sub-facets

Audience GeographicContent Types Subjects

Activities

Diseases

Companies

Laws

Products

Brands

Topics

FDA Taxonomy

FDA Org


REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Food”

AUDIENCES = “All”

FDA ORGANIZATION = “All”

CONTENT TYPE = “Budget”DATE = “Latest”

FDA ORGANIZATION = “Advisory Committees”

CONTENT TYPE = “Job Information”

INDEXES = “A-Z Indexes”

LANGUAGES = “es”

CONTENT TYPE = “News”

CONTENT TYPE = “Transcripts & Statements”

REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Drugs”

REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Medical Devices”

REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Biologics”

REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Animal & Veterinary”

REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Cosmetics”

REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Combination Products”

Taxonomy-driven portlets


CONTENT TYPE = “Recalls”REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Pet Food”

CONTENT TYPE = “Product Approvals”

CONTENT TYPE = “Dockets” OR LAWS = “All”

ACTIVITY = “Consumer Health”

CONTENT TYPE = “Product Approvals”DATE = “Today” to “Today-30”ORDER BY DATE

SUBJECT = “Drug safety”

CONTENT TYPE = “Recalls” OR “News Releases”ODER BY = “Date”

CONTENT TYPE = “Research Reports”

ACTIVITY = “Clinical Trials”

ACTIVITY = “Toxicological Research”

CONTENT TYPE = “Comments”

CONTENT TYPE = “Guidance Documents”



TAXONOMY TERM = “Regulated Products”ORDER BY = “BT”

CONTENT TYPE = “Recalls”ODER BY = “Date”

CONTENT TYPE = “Handling Complaints”

CONTENT TYPE = “Product Approvals”

AUDIENCES = “All”

FDA ORGANIZATION = “All”

CONTENT TYPE = “Budget”DATE = “Latest”

FDA ORGANIZATION = “Advisory Committees”

CONTENT TYPE = “Dockets” OR LAWS = “All”

ACTIVITY = “Clinical Trials”

CONTENT TYPE = “Job Information”

INDEXES = “A-Z Indexes”

LANGUAGES = “es”



FDA.GOV Taxonomy example: Information about what to do about bad spinach.

Taxonomy Facet Tag Values

Content Type Recalls & Product Alerts

FDA Org n/a

Subject: Activities Product Safety

Subject: Laws n/a

Subject: Products Food & Beverages > Produce

Subject: Brands n/a

Subject: Companies n/a

Subject: Conditions Gastroenteritis

Subject: Topics Food Safety

Audience Consumer

Geographic Areas n/a


FDA.GOV Taxonomy example: Information on Accutane for a patient.

Taxonomy Facet Tax Values

Content Type Product Information

FDA Org n/a

Subject: Activities Product Safety

Subject: Laws n/a

Subject: Products Drugs > Prescription Drugs

Subject: Brands Accutane; Isotretinoin

Subject: Companies n/a

Subject: Conditions Diseases > Acne

Subject: Topics n/a

Audience Healthcare Professional; Consumer

Geographic Areas n/a


FDA Taxonomy validation exercise

• Demonstrate that FDA staff will be able to use taxonomy to easily tag content.

• Validation tests:• Place 40 popular terms from Google query logs in the correct

Taxonomy facet.• Tag content from a test collection and compare those tags to an

established baseline.• 14 items selected from over 100.

• Half intranet, half internet.

• 16 FDA content managers participated.


Blind sorting of popular search terms

<25% Correct(8%)

25-50% Correct(5%)

50-75% Correct(15%)

72% of terms were correctly sorted 75-100% of the time.

Difficulties• Brand vs. Company names, e.g., Colgate.• Brand names vs. Product categories, e.g., Aspartame.• Content types (there are definitions & synonyms in taxonomy)• Facet definitions

Results: Very Good


Content tagging consensus

Alternatives17%

Unknown1%

Over-Tagged5%

Incorrect4%

Test subjects tagged content consistent with the baseline 73% of the time.

Observations• Many other tags were reasonable alternatives.• Correct + Alternative tags accounted for 90% of tags.• Over tagging was not a significant problem.

Results: Very Good


Some Benefits of The Taxonomy Work

• Breaks down organizational barriers• Cross-agency team worked on a common set of categories.• Related content more easily identified and linked within CMS.

• Enables searching across organizations, improves search results• More inclusive search results.

• Assists content managers in assembling:• New topics and sites.• Documents of interest.• What’s important today.


Taxonomy Benefits (2)

• Improves usability• Tagged content exponentially increases content managers’

ability to associate and present like content to the end user.

• May be used to extend future Web capabilities• Faster identification and delivery of information (e.g. RSS feeds)

on defined criteria.• Search and retrieval enhancements (grouping by related terms,

filtering search results)

• Serendipity: Discovery of new, unanticipated related information.


Web Standards Boards – Organizational structure

FDA Internet Improvement Team

Design & Editorial Board

Info Organization & Access Board

Web Tools & Applications Board

Taxonomy Team

FIT Core Team


Web Standards Boards – Membership

• OIM and External Relations (Chairs)• Board members may be nominated or self-nominated, then

approved by Chairs• One representative from each*:

* Non-contract personnel only


Taxonomy Team – Charter

• Taxonomy Team is responsible for maintaining:• The Taxonomy, a multi-faceted classification scheme.• Team rules and procedures for change management.• Taxonomy training materials.

• Taxonomy Team will consider costs and benefits of suggested changes.

• Taxonomy Team will:• Manage relationships with Taxonomy change requesters.• Identify new opportunities for use of the Taxonomy across the

agency to improve information management practices.• Promote awareness and use of the Taxonomy.


Questions

Joseph A Busch

Founder & Principal

Taxonomy Strategies LLC

+415-377-7912

[email protected]

www.taxonomystrategies.com