Digital White Papers

15 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Boosting Enterprise Search with Beer Metadata Tactics for Enhancing Metadata There are various tactics you can try for enhancing your metadata. Brute Force: The most obvious way to improve the quantity, and likely the quality, of metadata is to require users to enter basic metadata to save documents into the system or to open new maers. In other words, users must provide the information if they want to accomplish their task. The problems with this approach are obvious when one envisions taking this method to the extreme. Imagine an Orwellian law firm in which aorneys can do nothing until they first enter metadata into scores of fields describing exactly what they are about to save or open. With each additional required field, people will become more resentful and, trying to circumvent the requirements, will inevitably resort to entering inaccurate or misleading metadata, defeating the purpose of requiring the metadata. Many might avoid saving documents into the document management system entirely, opting instead to save documents onto local hard drives. Law firms must carefully consider what metadata they need and avoid an overload of required fields. Proper Training: A less intrusive approach is to train employees on the importance of entering metadata. Introducing this concept in a range of venues and formats is prudent. Consider adopting, and making readily available, comprehensive guidelines that explain how to categorize documents and maers, including concrete examples and guidance about what to do in confusing scenarios. Wrien guidelines could be bolstered with periodic training sessions and intranet postings reinforcing how collecting accurate metadata helps the firm work more efficiently. Firms should train legal assistants and paralegals to ask aorneys whenever they have concerns about how maers or documents should be categorized. Proper training brings improved metadata through user-driven behavior. When firm members recognize how they benefit from complete, accurate metadata, they will be more likely to devote time and energy to providing that information when saving documents and opening new maers, even where doing so is optional. However, to be effective, the message must be reinforced continually to keep enthusiasm alive; otherwise, new employees might fail to appreciate the benefits of metadata, and long-standing employees could forget and slip into old habits. Automation: Law firms also have the option of automating the collection of metadata by implementing systems that complete or suggest metadata entries when employees open maers and save documents. Many firms have taken the first step by creating virtual workspaces or folders in their document management systems with preset metadata that is applied to any documents saved in a workspace or folder. Example: When saving a document into a discovery folder in a hospital client's workspace for an employment litigation maer, it would inherit metadata for industry, maer type and document type from the workspace and folder into which it is saved. The author might have the option to change or refine the default information. Firms can take automation a step further by implementing soware that makes an educated guess about how to classify content Automation could be technologically difficult, especially for firms with well- established document management systems and matter intake procedures.

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