Social Tagging, Folksonomies & Controlled Vocabularies

1. Social Tagging, Folksonomies & Controlled Vocabularies Inviting New Access Systems to our Academic Table Margaret Maurer Associate Professor Head, Catalog & Metadata Kent State University Libraries and Media Services

2. What are tags? • Keywords or terms associated with or assigned to a piece of information • They enable keyword-based classification and search of information

3. Basic Model for Tagging Systems USER RESOURCES TAGS

8. Don’t confuse tags with keywords or full-text searching • Keywords are behind the scenes, tags are often visibly aggregated for use and browsing • Keywords can not be hyper-linked • Keywords imply searching, tags imply linking • Full-text searching is passive, tagging is active • It’s more about connecting items rather than categorizing them.

9. Tags can be… • Descriptions of the subject matter • Where the item is located • The intended use of the item • Individual (gift from mom) • Different people have different tagging patterns • Tagging systems encourage differences

10. Tags are • Non-hierarchical • A way to create links between items by the creation of sets of objects • A means of connecting with others interested in the same things

11. Tagging Systems Define • Who can tag • What can be tagged • What kinds of tags can be used • Tagging systems may result in the creation of a “folksonomy”

12. Types of Tagging Systems • Managing personal information • Social bookmarking • Collecting and sharing digital objects • Improving the e-commerce experience

13. Why is tagging so popular? • It is easy and enjoyable • It has a low cognitive cost • It is quick to do • It provides self and social feedback immediately

14. Putting the social in tagging • Tags allow for social interaction because when we navigate by tags we are directly connecting with others • People tag for their own benefit

15. Tags, and therefore social tags are • Dynamic categorization systems • Often created on-the-fly • Chosen as relevant to the user – not to the creator, cataloger or researcher • A social activity (more on this later) • Hopefully one small step toward a more interactive and responsive library system

16. What is a folksonomy? • Folksonomy refers to an “emergent, grassroots taxonomy” • An aggregate collections of tags • A bottom-up categorical structure development • An emergent thesaurus • A term coined by Thomas Vander Wal

17. Why do folksonomies work? • The searcher defines the access, but • The aggregation of the terms has public value • It’s a typically messy democratic approach

18. What makes folksonomies popular? • Their dynamic nature works well with dynamic resources • They’re personal • They lower barriers to cooperation

19. Tagging and the consequent folksonomies work best when • It’s easy to do • It’s not commercial in nature • Taggers have ownership • Taggers are more likely to tag their own stuff than they are your stuff • It has been shown to work well on the Web

20. The unexpected development: terminological consensus • Collective action yields common terms • Stabilization may be caused by imitation and shared knowledge • The wisdom of the crowd

21. Is your tagging influenced by my tagging? • Of course it is! • People are beginning tag in ways that make it easier for others to fine like stuff • Shared meaning consequently evolves for tags • Most used tags become most visible

22. Strengths of folksonomies • Cost-effective way to organize Internet • Social benefits • It’s inclusive • For many environments, they work well

23. Collocation issues • They do not yield the level of clarity that controlled vocabularies do • Term ambiguity – words with multiple meanings • No synonym control

24. Issues with specificity • Variable specificity for related terms • Broadness of terms impacts precision – terms are often imprecise • Mixed perspectives

25. Issues with structure • Singular and plural forms create redundant headings • No guidelines for the use of compound headings, punctuation, word order • No scope notes • No cross references

26. Issues with accuracy • Collective ‘wisdom’ of the tagging community • How does wrong information impact retrieval • Conflicting cultural norms • Sometimes authority counts

27. “Spagging” and other problems • Opening doors to opinion tags • Tagging wars • “Spagging”  Spam tagging

28. Tidying up the tags…? • Lists of tagging norms have been developed • Are there programmatic solutions? • Users know they are looking at tags • By tidying, do we destroy the essence of why this works? • Do we realistically have the resources?

29. Recommendations Don’t assume that one size fits all • Retain controlled vocabularies in the catalog • Explore ways to use controlled vocabularies to help organize the internet by re-purposing controlled vocabularies that already exist • Invite Folksonomies to the party in the catalog to gain their benefits • Explore ways to combine the two systems

30. Recommendations When you invite folksonomies into the catalog, do so strategically, and carefully • Don’t put terms in the same index as controlled vocabularies • Find ways to associate terms applied across editions of works • Need for mediation, or at least observation • The crowd is not necessarily the best arbiter of specific terminology

31. Recommendations Always remember why people tag • People tag things because they want to find them, not because they want others to find them • Be aware that this will impact the quality of the terms, and their frequency

32. Recommendations Controlled vocabularies could be better utilized than they currently are • Subject structures are underutilized in the ILS • Controlled vocabularies that exist are not being exported to the Web • Well-connected terms foster discovery – let’s connect them. Index those cross references where available

33. Questions? Margaret Maurer mbmaurer@kent.edu