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Sometimes you’ll hear the terms taxonomy and ontology bandied about interchangeably. A taxonomy is a hierarchical categorization of concepts based on relatedness. Ontologies model a little piece of existence or knowledge. For example, philosophers use ontology as a tool to describe states of being in the physical world (as opposed to discussions about metaphysics and the beyond).
So far they sound exactly the same: some kind of tool for describing things in their proper place and how they relate to each other. From a more modern perspective, taxonomies are used to help people find and retrieve information, and ontologies are used by computer programmers to reuse and transmit data.
So what’s a controlled vocabulary? A controlled vocabulary is usually a strict list of terms that describe some kind of subject matter. From a strict point of view, a controlled vocabulary is fundamentally identical to a taxonomy. They both provide a roadmap to working effectively with a body of knowledge. A thesaurus is a special kind of controlled vocabulary, one that allows you to define synonyms, antonyms, and other relationships. (In your ecommerce store, anyone who searches for a jacket is also shown blazers and coats, for instance.)
Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the Semantic Web and Topic Maps. Topic maps are very similar to other categorization schemas, and even has its own international standard (ISO 13250). We’re getting pretty long here (and believe me I can go on all day!) so I’m going to stop now.
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2 responses so far ↓
This makes absolutely no sense. What the heck is the difference?
At the end of the day, there really isn’t much difference. And it’s all been eclipsed by folksonomies and tagging anyway.