Planning Made All The Difference: FDA Web Taxonomy Case Study

1. Planning Made All The Difference: FDA Web Taxonomy Case Study U.S. Food and Drug Administration Working together to create a Web site that is… • Person-centric • Informative • Empowering • Interactive September 25, 2008 FDA Internet Improvement Team (FIT)

2. 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.

3. FDA Web Taxonomy project Kick-off meetings (8/3) 1 Discovery Resource Review 2 Metadata Specification Revise Spec Third taxo workshop (12/11) 3 Vocabulary Development Build-out Revise Taxo Review Taxo Strawman Build-out Extreme Review Review Taxo Finalize Taxo Review Taxo Build-out 4 Testing Extreme taxo workshop (8/14-17) First taxo workshop (10/18) Second taxo workshop (10/18) 5 Training & Guidance Factsheet Draft Process & Guidelines 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

4. FDA Web Taxonomy project (2) 1 Discovery 2 Metadata Specification Taxonomy testing (12/15-16) Finalize Taxo 3 Vocabulary Development 4 Testing Devise Test Test Review Test Analyze Test 5 Training & Guidance Taxonomy Governance Training Mats 12/14 12/21 12/28 1/4 1/11 1/18 1/23 1/30

5. FDA Taxonomy facets

6. FDA Taxonomy facets & sub-facets FDA Taxonomy Content Types Subjects Audience Geographic Activities FDA Org Laws Diseases Products Brands Companies Topics

7. Taxonomy-driven portlets LANGUAGES = “es” REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Food” INDEXES = “A-Z Indexes” REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Drugs” REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Medical Devices” REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Animal & Veterinary” REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Biologics” REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Cosmetics” REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Combination Products” AUDIENCES = “All” FDA ORGANIZATION = “All” CONTENT TYPE = “Job Information” FDA ORGANIZATION = “Advisory Committees” CONTENT TYPE = “Transcripts & Statements” CONTENT TYPE = “Budget” DATE = “Latest” CONTENT TYPE = “News”

8. Taxonomy-driven portlets CONTENT TYPE = “Product Approvals” DATE = “Today” to “Today-30” ORDER BY DATE CONTENT TYPE = “Recalls” REGULATED PRODUCTS = “Pet Food” ACTIVITY = “Consumer Health” SUBJECT = “Drug safety” CONTENT TYPE = “Recalls” OR “News Releases” ODER BY = “Date” CONTENT TYPE = “Research Reports” ACTIVITY = “Clinical Trials” CONTENT TYPE = “Dockets” OR LAWS = “All” ACTIVITY = “Toxicological Research” CONTENT TYPE = “Comments” CONTENT TYPE = “Product Approvals” CONTENT TYPE = “Guidance Documents”

9. Taxonomy-driven portlets CONTENT TYPE = “Recalls” ODER BY = “Date” LANGUAGES = “es” INDEXES = “A-Z Indexes” TAXONOMY TERM = “Regulated Products” ORDER BY = “BT” CONTENT TYPE = “Handling Complaints” CONTENT TYPE = “Product Approvals” FDA ORGANIZATION = “All” AUDIENCES = “All” CONTENT TYPE = “Budget” DATE = “Latest” ACTIVITY = “Clinical Trials” FDA ORGANIZATION = “Advisory Committees” CONTENT TYPE = “Job Information” CONTENT TYPE = “Dockets” OR LAWS = “All”

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

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

12. 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.

13. Blind sorting of popular search terms Results: Very Good 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

14. Content tagging consensus Results: Very Good 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. Web Standards Boards – Organizational structure FDA Internet Improvement Team FIT Core Team Design & Editorial Board Web Tools & Applications Board Info Organization & Access Board Taxonomy Team

18. 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*: • CDER • CFSAN • CDRH • CBER • CVM • OC • ORA • NCTR • OIM • OER * Non-contract personnel only

19. 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.

20. Questions Joseph A Busch Founder & Principal Taxonomy Strategies LLC +415-377-7912 jbusch@taxonomystrategies.com www.taxonomystrategies.com