Enterprise search vendor Verity Inc. this week will introduce taxonomy and classification management software designed to make it easier to find business information.
According to Hadley Reynolds, vice-president and research director of Delphi Group, the accuracy of enterprise search can be improved with navigation aids such as classification and taxonomy tools that help workers browse through information before searching.
“It is not so much that classification and taxonomy replaces search but makes it more efficient by providing a filter, a way to see information around a business category,” Reynolds said.
VCC (Verity Collaborative Classifier) 1.0 is taxonomy and classification management software that aims to simplify and distribute the process of building and maintaining taxonomies.
The tool allows distributed subject-matter experts to collaborate with corporate librarians and engineers to organize corporate information according to business roles and categories, said Scott Whitney, director of product management at Verity.
Navigation is an important facet of search because it saves time and reduces duplicate work by discovering others in a company who are working on similar subjects.
“VCC provides a navigation system for your business. It creates a map of all business content from around the world and helps people find info quickly,” Whitney said.
The product distributes the responsibility of creating directories by assigning creation and modification duties to editors who know the content and by delegating approval and publishing functions to engineers who understand taxonomy development.
“For the first time we have a notion of workflow in taxonomy building,” Whitney said. VCC also includes automatic classification and publishing capabilities to keep taxonomies up to date in real time, according to Verity officials.
In other search news, Recommind Inc. last week unwrapped MindServer 3.0, a text management system for searching, archiving, and automatically categorizing information. New to Version 3.0 is a GUI-based administration tool designed to simplify configuration. The update will also include pre-built connectors for easy integration with applications such as portals, content management systems, and databases, according to Robert Tennant, CEO of Recommind.
