I’ve got an idea for some of the ECM vendors out there. How about allowing us to create multiple active versions of metadata for each content item? Right now, on most systems, there’s more or less a single record related to each item in the repository. We (implementers) in turn spend quite a bit of time during requirements and design time figuring out how to put together a simple yet elegant metadata model using that single record. The problem that I find though is that content categorisation tends to be a pretty subjective process and most items end up with “best fit” as determined by the contributor.
The reality of course is that content consumers also have their own subjective idea of how each piece of content should be categorised and when the two don’t mesh there’s a disconnect. The standard ECM answer here is that if there is a disconnect like that you’re metadata model is probably broken. But what if instead of our standard model contributors were able to add multiple different contextual records to a content item? You’re now looking at a variety of different search paths to the same piece of content as well as the ability to provide different metadata for different uses.
The question that comes up of course is “Couldn’t we accomplish the same thing by adding more fields?”. And the answer is probably not. Adding more fields means that users must know where to look or must look in multiple places to find what they are looking for. If theoretically there were multiple dimensions of metadata for a single item, there would be different paths to the same content. Dimension one’s description may not match the search criteria, but dimension two’s does.
I started thing about this, while working with a pretty sizable taxonomy implemented as a six field dynamic choice list in then Stellent(now Oracle). What I kept running in to were documents which could easily be assigned to multiple locations in the taxonomy. In some of them, each paragraph was applicable for a different location. So why not let it happen?
In addition, having only a single record puts an emphasis on getting the metadata right the first time. I believe that if systems could support multiple records, authors might feel more comfortable using tagging automation. Perhaps 5-10 dimensions of metadata added through automation could be just as effective as a single record manually input?
