Taxonomist

LAC Federal is seeking a Taxonomist to manage the corporate taxonomies (Enterprise Business Vocabularies) and related business and operational processes. The Taxonomist will ensure the quality of the EBV and advocate for EBV adoption and effectiveness by engaging Economists and other staff to develop and review the vocabularies. In addition, as a key player in the Unit’s overall work program, the ideal candidate will own or contribute to project activities that involve the use of taxonomies for a variety of applications. The selected candidate will be working with a multi-disciplinary governance group of knowledge management, information science and other specialists.

Responsibilities:

• Own the design, development and maintenance of taxonomies and controlled vocabularies as part of the EBV, in close collaboration with business subject matter experts (SME) within the organization, with an eye towards continuous improvement and fit-for-purpose.
• Maintain the roster of taxonomy subject matter experts (SME) and participate in activities to facilitate their ongoing engagement with the EBV and KMU.
• Translate end user or project team requests into implementable taxonomy updates; liaise with IT staff to ensure the proper implementation of taxonomy changes in the taxonomy management tool; as needed, contribute to business requirements and testing for the taxonomy management tool.
• Recommend and document metrics to support the taxonomy program – to track taxonomy changes and usage, inform taxonomy enhancements, and communicate results.
• Apply knowledge of taxonomy modeling standards to projects and initiatives that utilize the EBV, such as metadata design and autocategorization.
• Support the program lead in developing and implementing strategic roadmaps and play an active role in contributing to operational improvements and program communications.

Requirements

Mandatory Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in Library/Information Science, Knowledge Management, Economics or equivalent, supplemented by a minimum of four years of relevant professional experience; or a bachelors’ degree in a related field of study supplemented by a minimum of 10 years of relevant professional experience, is required.
• Background in Library/Information Science, Knowledge Management, Economics, or other related fields.
• Experience in developing sophisticated taxonomies to support a variety of systems both for front-end and back-end use (e.g., information retrieval, knowledge discovery, content navigation, autocategorization, statistical databases).
• Ability to design, build and maintain complex taxonomies for a SKOS-based system
• Ability to interpret business and organizational needs and translate them into technical and operational requirements for the EBV
• General understanding of the relationship between taxonomies and ontologies, and how they can be integrated.
• Familiarity with best-in-class semantic technologies, including taxonomy or ontology management tools, and how they are used to maintain semantic models.
• Meticulous attention to detail.
• Business process management related to taxonomy or ontology development and maintenance; ability to effectively plan and balance multiple project assignments.
• Understanding of how taxonomies and other semantic models benefit Knowledge Management.
• Ability to clearly explain taxonomy principles and standards, and other technical and complex information in non-technical business terms to a non-technical audience
• Ability to effectively engage with a wide range of business stakeholders in a multi-functional organizational environment.
• Experience managing business and operational processes or workflows that support work programs in the Knowledge Management domain (e.g., for taxonomy management or content publishing).
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with ability to assemble disparate information into cohesive outputs.
• Team player with excellent verbal and written communication skills and listening skills; flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances.
• Strong negotiation and persuasion skills, with experience proactively influencing diverse stakeholder groups.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Hands-on experience with a range of business semantic frameworks and query languages including RDF, OWL and SHACL.
• Familiarity with metadata management, autocategorization, machine-learning, ontologies and/or knowledge graphs

Benefits

Part-Time:

• Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)