Triumph Learning Taxonomy Development for Supplemental Education

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Triumph Learning Taxonomy Development
With launch of a new Content Management System (CMS) for writing teams,
Triumph Learning needed integrated taxonomies for precise alignment of
standards-based instructional content.
To design their vocabulary axis, the supplemental education publisher joined
forces with Access Innovations for thesaurus development and customization.
“The taxonomy contains terms reflecting concepts, skills, and learning
standards in a hierarchical structure.” – Press Release: New York, NY May 13, 2013
Triumph Learning publishes supplemental educational content for print & digital media.

Project Goals – Math, English Language Arts
 Develop structure for supplemental educational content:
• Quizzes, games, and learning videos
• Content objects need to allow for interactivity – if a quiz question is
answered incorrectly, the user is steered towards a relevant lesson
based on the ‘misconception’
• Terms that describe a ‘skill mastered’ or a ‘learning misconcept’
must be useable in different ways across grade levels and learning
strands [Reading, Writing, etc.]
• Multi-directional navigation is key for these controlled vocabularies!
 Alphanumeric coding of Common Core terms for data
linking, automated search and robust indexing capability
Master Skills
ConceptsCommon Core Standards

Access Innovations/DataHarmony, February 2014
Kirk Sanders, Project Manager – Editorial Dept.
Copyright Access Innovations, Inc. 2014

Taxonomy configuration had to accomplish essential
project directives:
 Design multi-dimensional term mappings to interrelate
content objects across diverse taxonomy branches
 Construct thesaurus hierarchies to reflect strengths of the
Common Core State Standards
 Make flexible configurations to advance Triumph territory, in
high-definition conceptual schemas
 Support pre-flight testing with clear design principles for
CMS launch – multi-directional navigation for an improved
creative writing environment
Related items of interest:
1. Storing standards as text is an unusual use for thesaurus software.*
2. The standards coding scheme needs to be captured, and
3. Implementing a rulebase isn’t on the client’s drawing board.

In addition, Access Innovations’ taxonomy
development process would have to involve:
 Customizing Thesaurus Master® software to maximize
project gains and generate powerful exports that will drive
Triumph Learning’s content management engines
Access Innovations editors and DataHarmony programmers visualized solutions and
creatively combined our efforts to accomplish the project directives. Multiple software
customizations were conceived, designed, and tested while the Editorial Team was
producing the terminology sets.
We repeatedly reconfigured data elements based on the nature of the input data.

“Common Core State Standards” – What are they?
 Common Core represents
national standards created from
a consensus process involving
educator groups and other key
players
 States may comply at their
prerogative, either by
implementing the full set of
standards, or parts of it; or by
individualizing the material for
unique educational goals and
conditions

Each state may ignore, adapt, adopt and/or expand on the Common Core State Standards for
implementation in curriculum planning, test design and educator performance measures.
New Mexico’s CC site has entry points for four different audiences – the first three groups
correspond toTriumph’s major audiences  skills terms need to have phrasing that is specific
to educators, and also be the source of phrasing ready for alternate display to students.

* Storing a text standard in thesaurus format is unusual. It was the nature of the
input sources... so we implemented a flexible configuration for the term records.
Using a consistent method, we streamlined all term names for the narrowest levels
in the Common Core standard, as a significant adaptation for taxonomic value!

Common Core data is stored in appropriately-configured fields for flexible
implementation and related with nonCommon Core information.
Nature of the data:Terms without Rules.

Master Skills terms have 2 fields containing text for display to different audiences: ‘Teacher-
facing Skill’ and ‘Student-facing Skill.’
Originally configured as NPTs for the Skill-name, we changed them into simple text fields –
permitting the client’s math and English teams to use identical text in both, when necessary.

Challenge – Regarding the taxonomy export format for importing intoCMS.
Triumph Learning wanted groups of PreferredTerms nested in each broader
hierarchy level… which isn’t the wayThesaurus Master usually groupsTerm
Records.
Common Core State Standard hierarchy goal for Mathematics:
TAXONOMY MAIN BRANCH / AUTHORITY LIST /TOPTERM ENTRY POINT FOR CMS
|__MAJOR SUB-BRANCHES
|__COMMON CORE GRADE-LEVEL
|__COMMON CORE DOMAIN-LEVEL
|__COMMON CORE CLUSTER-LEVEL
|__STANDARD-LEVEL.
Common Core State Standard hierarchy goal for English Language Arts:
TAXONOMY MAIN BRANCH / AUTHORITY LIST /TOPTERM ENTRY POINT FOR CMS
|__MAJOR SUB-BRANCHES
|__COMMON CORE STRAND/GRADE-LEVEL COMBINATION
|__COMMON CORE GRADE-LEVEL
|__COMMON CORE DOMAIN-LEVEL
|__COMMON CORE CLUSTER-LEVEL
|__STANDARD-LEVEL
|__ COMPONENT-LEVEL.

Creative solution!
 Lamine customized an export format that contains the ‘full
path’ through the branches of the vocabulary, for every PT:
• From any location, the export always answers the query ‘How did
we come through the hierarchy to reach this term?’
• Using term-lists, he grouped the terms in a way to capture this
information, not previously captured by any Thesaurus Master
exports
 Full Path export format enables XML developers to hook
into those upward/downward paths through the taxonomy
structure, for programming flexible navigation options and
other CMS functions – from anywhere in the taxonomies
• This capability is in addition to CMS functions that Triumph built
based solely on relations, codes and IDs already present in the terms

Thesaurus Master export formats showing ‘Full Path’

The ‘Term-list’ element helps to achieve the goal of capturing the full path.

Why do taxonomy terms need italics?
Common Core State Standards for Mathematics – excerpt from the Introduction.

Right-clicking to ChangeTerm also brings up the EnterTerm dialog box with emphasis
buttons, for adjusting terms.

Here’s one of the test terms we used for displaying emphasis inThesaurus Master™

Questions or comments?  Kirk_Sanders@accessinn.com

Acknowledgements: Thank you!
 Margie Hlava – Client Consulting & Taxonomy Design
 Jay Ven Eman – Project Sales & Communications Oversight
 Bob Kasenchak – Project Coordination Oversight
 Raj Chary – Technical Lead at Triumph Learning
 Mary Garcia – Editorial Support, Workflow & DataHarmony Maintenance
 Lamine Idjeraoui – Programming in Java for DataHarmony Development
 Dan Vasicek – Programming
 Alice Redmond-Neal – DataHarmony Lead Trainer
 Leland Yates – Project Proposals, Sales & Marketing
 Access Innovations Editorial Staff – Branch-building & Quality Control

Triumph Learning Taxonomy Development for Supplemental Education

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