Creating and Maintaining Machine-Generated Taxonomies in Human Organizations: Contributions from Research and Practice

This position paper presents a hybrid view of the creation and maintenance of machine-generated taxonomies. We analyze and propose challenges in areas where information systems overlap with human social systems, and we also bring two types of experience to address the theme of the workshop. We combine a relatively conventional, formal research approach based on user studies of taxonomies in organizations with our practical experience over the past 18 months. We are subject matter experts working with machine-generated taxonomies, and we consult to customers and business partners who are creating taxonomies for their own organizations (Pohs, Thiel, Earley, & White, 2001) We hope that this hybridization (Muller, 2003) of theory and practice provides insights and reveals problems that would not be apparent if we were writing from only one of our two perspectives.