Introducing the Minimum Viable Taxonomy Level 1
Brought to you by the Research Repositories Program Team
Preface
This article was written by Ian Hamilton, Emily DiLeo, India Anderson, Mark McElhaw and Annette Boyer on behalf of the entire Research Repositories Program Team.
This article is the first in a companion series about taxonomies that support the four types of knowledge management systems (KMSs) described in the overview of our research repositories program. In this article, we explore the three-layer framework of taxonomies for research repositories, describe our “minimum viable taxonomy” (MVT) approach, and provide the MVT Level 1 artefact.
The MVT Level 1 is a taxonomy for indexing research documents and artefacts and supports the research register and research library KMSs. It aims to provide a common starting point for the taxonomy of various types of research repositories/KMSs, regardless of the industry, organization type, or tool being used.
Whether you’re just starting a repository or refreshing an existing one, we hope the MVT helps you tackle the deceptively simple and often overlooked work of a taxonomist. Read on to uncover the background of the program, our approach to creating the MVT, some tips on the change management required to implement it successfully, and what’s coming up next in the research repositories program.
Research repositories are becoming increasingly commonplace, yet they continue to be under-defined or misunderstood within their organisations and in the ResearchOps space itself. Probably the biggest takeaway from our research was that many people are launching repositories without applying a human-centered design process to their KMS: knowing about the users of their KMS, defining clear goals, or building a governance process [1].
With the plethora of tools that allow researchers to jump into the other models, it’s understandable that the allure of “diving into the deep end and figuring it out along the way” can be very strong for organizations dipping their toes into the research repository space. As we’ve mentioned before, that is by no means a slight on any of the knowledge management tools currently available on the market, as we all realize that it’s a hard process that requires more than just implementation. Getting researchers to want to contribute their research to a research repository can actually be one of the tougher parts of getting buy-in. Changing hearts and minds can be a slow process that goes beyond implementing a new tool. All of this work is a heavy lift for researchers who are often the ones designing, building and socializing a repository while maintaining a full schedule of research activities.
Through the research repositories project, we sought to address some of this uncertainty and answer the question (among others): what do we mean when we say research repository? Our research uncovered four different models of knowledge management:
- A research register
- A research data repository
- An ‘insights hub’
- A research library
It’s the final model, the research library, that piqued the interest of the researchops community and became the foundation for the first level of the MVT. Research libraries act as a searchable front-end for research within an organization. This means that various stakeholders can search for different media, for instance, research reports, deliverables and artefacts, and templates. Research libraries that are publicly available, like the Hackney Council User Research Library, also serve users beyond the immediate organizational stakeholders, democratizing research insights and findings or reducing complexity in sharing work with external stakeholders.
The team
Making this project easy was actually really hard! Many of us were juggling full-time work, experiencing unemployment, and of course, navigating the pandemic. As a true cooperative, we took turns leading initiatives and stepped in when others needed to step back.
A special shout out to Mark McElhaw, a driving force of the program since its inception in 2019 and the originator of the “minimum viable” approach to taxonomies we describe here. Thank you, Mark, ❤
The folks behind the MVT Level one include Annette Boyer, Brigette Metzler, Dana Chrisfield, Emily DiLeo, Fatima Kamali, Holly Cole, Ian Hamilton, India Anderson, Jahnavi Mirashi, Lorenco Rodrigues, Rogerio Lorenco, and many others!
Our research
In the initial Research Repositories project, we committed the classic taxonomy 101 error of boiling the ocean for terms. This made the initial vocabulary cumbersome, off-putting to volunteers, and consequently unfinished. The concept of a minimum viable taxonomy emerged to give people a common denominator to start a taxonomy at the most basic level — indexing existing work.
Emerging from the ‘‘research library’ model, the idea of a ‘minimum viable taxonomy’ evolved as an attempt to create a foundational, flexible and functional way of cataloguing and sharing research in a searchable format intended for use by multiple stakeholders in and even across organizations. However, we understood very quickly what those in industry and practising in the repos space had been telling us throughout our research — that even at the minimum level, a taxonomy is a complex and, at times, ambitious project!
Through a little bit of trial, error and reflection, we realised that breaking the MVT into three levels would help us to start with the very foundational aspects of a research library that could be adapted and adjusted to fit the majority of organisations. By adopting some core lessons from library and archival practices and utilising our learnings from the ResearchOps community, we were able to pave the way for level 1 of the MVT, which we hope will help organisations overcome the hurdles involved in getting started with taxonomies to instead take advantage of all they have to offer.
Initially, we created an MVT among the original team. However, we wanted to practice a UCD approach and also see what the community might come up with by comparison. We started by asking the community to submit terms that they use and thought critical to indexing their research artefacts. We sorted through 44 items to filter synonyms and included some “outliers” (terms based on research practice rather than indexing, e.g. research method, research plan).
These items were then included on a closed card sort using MoSCoW prioritization with 104 participants. We further filtered these by participant characteristics such as research team size and organisation type. We removed outliers and then iteratively discussed overlapping terms, especially “date” (e.g., date created, published, ended, etc).
Once we had the level 1 MVT, we prepared to test with the global ResearchOps community in two sessions. Testing revealed further aspects to adjust, including the categories.
How to use the MVT Level 1
The MVT Level 1 is a baseline for searching a repository of synthesised data. It is intended to be used by a range of stakeholders relevant to your organisation, including people who do research (“PWDR”s) as well as non-researchers.
It’s important to keep in mind that MVT Level 1 is best implemented after completing user research at your organisation. You need to know who will use your repository and what they will search for. What are the expectations of contributors to your repository in terms of their time and effort? You will also need to have conversations with your team (as well as with a broader “repository working group”) about how to implement each term (see the artefact for more guidance on this).
The MVT Level 1 and definitions
The MVT level 1 contains 11 terms/categories, as well as definitions, examples and use cases. We’ve also indicated whether there will be a single entry or multiple entries per term/category.
Overall, it’s important to remember that MVT Level 1 is a framework, and terms/categories should be tailored to the needs of the organization. You may choose to modify a term or leave it out of your taxonomy altogether, but generally speaking, your repository should be searchable by these terms/categories.
Artefact: MVT Level 1 Taxonomy
And there you have it, you’re on track to get started with your very own MVT! If you have any questions along the way, you can always ask the community when you need their input (Slack channel #taxonomy). We have begun work on MVT level 2! Don’t hesitate to reach out on the #taxonomy Slack channel if you’d like to be involved in future aspects of the taxonomy project.
The ResearchOps Community and people within the Community have put together resources for you to use. Everything the Community does is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike International Licence. Please expand on, share, and modify it, but always give credit to the ResearchOps Community as its source.
The ResearchOps research repositories project aims to develop a set of requirements, guidelines, and frameworks to build and evaluate a research repository (repo)/research library (knowledge management system).
Where possible, please share what you learn back to the Community so we can keep growing and learning collectively!
