Building an Information Architecture for Collaboration within a Healthcare Setting Using

Sharepoint

Building an Information Architecture for Collaboration within a Healthcare Setting Using

Sharepoint

Introduction

Information architecture is a structured conceptual model that represents the way in which information is labeled, organized and made available to users. If planned, developed, implemented and adhered to correctly, an information architecture will provide consistency and standards across a healthcare organization (Gunasekaran & Sandhu, 2010).

In the context, an information architecture includes how the information in a SharePoint Server. It also includes how content, including documents and records, will be classified and how metadata will be applied to Office system files, such as Word documents, through document information panels and document placeholders.

Importance of Information Architecture

Planning, designing and adhering to an appropriate information architecture for SharePoint Server and the Microsoft Office system will help ensure the operational goals, such as document management and information distribution, are effectively met(Hoyt, Yoshihashi & Bailey, 2012). For example, using a consistent terminology across a healthcare organization will help facilitate better communications, enable users to find and re-use information easily, and provide the basis for consistent processes (Glaser & Salzberg, 2011).

SharePoint Server include many features, such as content types and site collections, which help support the implementation of a well designed information architecture. It is the task of information architects, solution architects, IT professionals, information standards professionals, developers and site designers to ensure these are fully utilised(McCullough, 2010). A successful information architecture project will result in the planning and design of:

Site hierarchy - How site(s) will be structured and divided into a set of subsites.

Navigation - This should be recorded in the Plan Navigation worksheet

Web pages - How data will be presented on the site(s). This should be recorded in the Plan Master Pages, Plan Content Pages (Article), Plan Content Pages (Welcome), Plan a Page Content Type and Plan Layout Pages worksheets

Content authoring and approval- How content will be authored, what approval processes the content will go through. This should be recorded in the Content Authoring and Approval and Plan Content Restrictions worksheets (Obadiah, Denko & Woungang, 2011)

Personalized content - How information will be targeted to groups of users. This should be recorded in the Plan Audiences worksheet

Document taxonomy and metadata - How documents will be classified and tagged. This should be recorded in the Document Management Stakeholder, Analyze Document Usage, Plan Document Libraries, Plan a Document Content Type and Site Columns worksheets

Plan

Planning and designing an information architecture for SharePoint Server and the Microsoft Office system involves considering site hierarchy, navigation, Web pages, content authoring and approval, and personalized content, as well as document taxonomies and metadata(Furterer, 2012).

The following figure 1 illustrates the sequence of events required when planning and designing an information architecture.

Figure 1

Plan and Design Site Hierarchy

Once the vision and scope of the solution, including the project goals, has been defined, it is important to decide how sites will aggregate information and how these sites will be classified. This is known as a site hierarchy, taxonomy or site ...