Copyright © 2003 Coolheads Consulting
Coolheads Consulting
The Internal Revenue Service Tax Map
Michel Biezunski
Coolheads ConsultingNew York City, USA
Copyright © 2003 Coolheads Consulting
Providing better service to taxpayers
When taxpayers call the IRS for assistance, they don't always get the right answer.
Too much information, changing rapidly.
The call centers receives up to 1,000,000 calls a day.
Exploit existing metadata to display all information relevant to a subject
Copyright © 2003 Coolheads Consulting
How Tax Map was Built
Started with a prototype with 8 Tax Information Publications (Dec. 2001)
Extended the prototype with 33 business Tax Information Publications
Added Frequently Asked Questions
Merged Publications and FAQs
Extended project to 95 Tax Information Publications
Added Tele-Tax Topics
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First Prototype
Methodology Design a topic map model. Preserve the workflow. Exploit markup for printed index. Use an existing technology with some customization. Set up an automatic process to produce HTML pages
containing sliced publications + automatically created web pages for topic screens and indexes.
Results: Much information becomes visible, but:
Too many topics for easy navigation.Some inconsistencies in the indexing revealed for the first time by
integration.
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Subsequent Steps
Integration of more Tax Information Publications 1st step: 8 2nd step: 33 3rd step: 95
Integration of the Frequently Asked Questions
Integration of the Tele-Tax Topics
Improvement of Graphic design
Improvement of Tax Map
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Side Effects of Merging Information
The "getting-together" effect Publications are authored by tax experts who are providing
reliable and precise information to taxpayers mirroring expert terms.
2 domains: Business and Individual domains use different terminology, with some overlap.
Frequently Asked Questions are authored using terms used by taxpayers writing email to the IRS. Taxpayers have their own non-expert vocabulary.
Need to map the various vocabularies.
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Improving System Efficiency
Difference between 3 kinds of subjects: The "key topics", i.e. frequently used subjects appearing in the
Frequently Asked Questions. Number: a few hundreds, as opposed to 8000 for all topics.
The "form topics", i.e. topics that refer to forms. All other topics.
Differentiation of kinds of subjects is achieved automatically by different extraction procedures. However, some subjects have been "upgraded" to key subjects
by tax experts and call assistors who have picked them from the comprehensive list.
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Merging/relating by name
Mapping done using 2 kinds of links: Identity (Synonyms): Same subject, different terms.
Example: "1040X" and "Amended Tax Return". Related subjects: Nature of the relationships too complex to be
differentiated into various relation types. Notion of "generic relationship" preferred.
2 methods: Automatic method: Rules designed for assimilating terms:
Singular/plural forms, expression using permutations of same words, etc.
Mapping done by tax experts and call assistors (users) during a one-week seminar.
Result is a map containing topics to merge and topics to relate. This map is integrated with the map automatically derived from extracted topic markup from source documents.
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Possible Extension Scenarios
Tax Map has been designed to be reused over the year with new source information coming in.
User feedback combined with input of tax experts will be used to maintain and improve the existing topic map.
Other document types can be added. For example, assistors use a "Probe and Response Guide" that leads them to qualify the caller and find the relevant topic. This document could be added to Tax Map.
Tax Map can be adapted for use by the public on the IRS web site.
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IRS Tax Map as a Reference
A "Published Subject" is a subject described and maintained by an organization that is intended to be linked to from outside.
The "IRS published subjects" (if any) could serve as navigation hubs for other users.
The IRS is the most authoritative source of information for tax information. It is responsible for defining and maintaining the terms that are used throughout publications that have to do with tax matters.
Consequently, IRS Tax Map is a good candidate to be used as a basis of reference for information sets which need to make use of tax-related information.
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The Internal Revenue Service Tax Map Pilot
For use on the Intranet by assistors in the call centers.
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Accessing the Subjects by Category
Main Topics, enriched by a team oftax experts, are isolated from the total number of topics resulting from theintegrated indexes of thepublications as well as from theFAQs.
•Main topics are accessible throughalphabetic indexes.
•Form topics are accessible through a specialized list.
•All other topics can be retrievedusing the built-in search engine.
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Browsing Documents
3 document types:
PublicationsFAQs
Tele-Tax Topics
Hierarchicalnavigation todocuments.
Each pub hasits own tableof contents.
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Browsing by Subject
Resource Scope
Resource Type
Abstract
Other names
Main name
Related Subjects (Main Name displayed)
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Bookmarks
When a subjectoccurs within
a page, navigation is
enabled to thesubject page,
and to thenext/previous
occurrenceof the same
subject elsewhere.