Classification and Taxonomy
ERM Community Wiki
The term taxonomy is derived from the Greek word "taxis" meaning order and "nomos" meaning law or science. Thus, taxonomy is the science of classifying information. A taxonomy is a law for classifying information. The ancient Greeks used taxonomies to classify things in the world around them in much the same way we do today. We use taxonomies in our everyday life. Think about shopping for groceries. How do you find things in the grocery store? You look at signs above the aisles or perhaps a listing placed conveniently in the grocery cart that presents various items to you along with their location but more importantly with their classification like dairy, produce, meat and poultry.
To understand taxonomy is to understand everyday life and understand that as humans, we classify everything whether we realize it or not. It is what brings order to potential chaos.
ISO 15489 defines classification schemes in terms of the process of classification, as follows:
Classification is the “systematic identification and arrangement of business activities, and/or records into categories, according to logically structured conventions, methods, and procedural rules represented in a classification system.”
Benefits of records classification include consistent naming of records over time, appropriate access to records, and retention periods.
For our purposes here, taxonomy is a scheme to achieve classification, i.e., you use a taxonomy to classify your records.
Developing a taxonomy can be a laborious and time-consuming process, though an alternative big bucket approach could be warranted. Technology can also automatically classify records, especially email, though there are drawbacks to this approach. Another approach is to allow users to develop the taxonomy/classification scheme through a folksonomy (not always an option in the context of records management).
Common taxonomies include the grocery store scheme cited earlier, the library’s Dewey Decimal System, the Periodic Table of Elements, and Carl Linnaeus’ classification all of living things that you may remember from your high school biology (kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, species). Linnaeus’ example is particularly relevant, since like any good taxonomy, it progresses from the general to the more specific.
There are some basic questions you should ask before you start developing and implementing a new taxonomy.
