Social metadata (tagging, folksonomy)

Will social classification replace traditional forms of organising information on the web?

by Izabella Warner

This paper looks at the evolving concept of social classification on the web and, contrasts it with traditional... more This paper looks at the evolving concept of social classification on the web and, contrasts it with traditional techniques of organising information. It analyses the rise of this concept, its advantages, and the challenges posed by individual users creating information collections. It illustrates that social classification provides a useful tool through which the growing number of information resources on the web can be given personal meaning. However, the current short -comings of the system give it a complementary role to traditional forms of information classification. It is proposed that before social classification can take a stronger foothold on Information Architecture, and organisations begin to structure content differently for their clients, social classification needs to evolve further along its current emerging trends of: greater structure, auto-manual components, leveraging community effects and incorporating user-generated innovation. Following this transformation social classification will change the way digital information is presented, and shared understanding is created and communicated on the web.

Tags, networks, narrative: exploring the use of social software for the study of narrative in digital contexts

by Sue Thomas

The Democratization of Metadata: Collective Tagging, Folksonomies and Web 2.0

by Joshua Avery

This paper was noted as an "excellent introduction to the topic" by the Center for the Future of Museums. http://www.futureofmuseums.org/reading/rr20100726.cfm

This paper explores some of the ways in which folksonomies are shaping notions and methods surrounding contemporary... more This paper explores some of the ways in which folksonomies are shaping notions and methods surrounding contemporary knowledge management, how they are currently being used and how information professionals are reacting to these developments. This paper will also explore the future of folksonomies and their contribution to the growth of Web 2.0 and a more democratic World Wide Web.

Imagining the Built Works Registry

by Christine Kuan

Co-authored with Aaron Straup Cope

Buildings are the setting for and the cast of secondary characters—the soundtrack music—that inhabit our lives. With... more Buildings are the setting for and the cast of secondary characters—the soundtrack music—that inhabit our lives. With new online tools democratizing the way architectural information is created and shared, how do we preserve a culture of scholarly expertise that holds reliable data to be foundational in the pursuit of knowledge while also adapting it to flourish in an increasingly networked world that sees participation from the widest number of actors as a core principle and benefit to the public good? This paper explores the critical concepts of “authority” and “community” by proposing one possible approach to networked authority files in order to create a built works registry that would promote collaborations among experts and the public. As we continue to develop, demolish, and reshape our architectural environments, such a registry of built works could become the vehicle for capturing and preserving future histories.

Folksonomia como uma estratégia para Recuperação Colaborativa da Informação

by Dora Garrido

Co-authored with Angel Freddy Godoy Viera, published in DataGramaZero.

Este artigo visa compreender a folksonomia não apenas como um fenômeno social, mas como uma ferramenta que pode vir a... more Este artigo visa compreender a folksonomia não apenas como um fenômeno social, mas como uma ferramenta que pode vir a ser eficaz para a recuperação colaborativa da informação em ambiente web. A partir de pesquisa documental, é feita uma breve revisão de literatura sobre recuperação da informação com foco na recuperação colaborativa e outros aspectos inerentes das redes sociais formadas na web. Perspectivas de autores que estudam a folksonomia em diferentes abordagens são analisadas e nos auxiliam na compreensão das principais vantagens e limitações desta ferramenta para recuperação. Deste modo, compreende-se a folksonomia não apenas como “mais uma ferramenta” criada para atribuir valor e significado em metadados, mas que representa uma mudança fundamental no modo em que se pensa a organização da informação para a web. Conclui-se que a diversidade de opções de sistemas de organização e recuperação torna-se ilimitada com as possibilidades da web e que sistemas de etiquetagem colaborativa coexistirão com os tradicionais sistemas de recuperação da informação.


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Folksonomy as a strategy for Collaborative Information Retrieval

This paper focuses on folksonomy not only as a social phenomenon, but as a tool that may be effective for collaborative information retrieval in the web environment. From a documental study, it includes a brief review of literature on information retrieval focusing on collaborative information retrieval and other inherent aspects in social networks formed on the web. Perspectives of authors who study folksonomy in different approaches are analyzed and help us to understand the main advantages and limitations of this retrieval tool. Thus, we do not only understand folksonomy as "another tool" designed to give meaning and value in metadata, but it represents a fundamental shift in how we think the organization of information to the web. We conclude that the diversity of options for organization and retrieval systems becomes unlimited with the possibilities of the web, and collaborative tagging systems will coexist with traditional information retrieval systems.

Semantic Annotation of Images on Flickr

by Pierre Andrews

co-authored with: Pierre Andrews, Sergey Kanshin, Juan Pane, and Ilya Zaihrayeu
published at: Proceedings of the 8th Extended Semantic Web Conference (ESWC 2011), Springer LNSC, Heraklion, Greece, May 29th - June 2nd, 2011.

In this paper we introduce an application that allows its users to have an explicit control on the meaning of tags... more In this paper we introduce an application that allows its users to have an explicit control on the meaning of tags they use when uploading photos on Flickr.
In fact, this application provides to the users an improved interface with which they can add concepts to photos instead of simple free-text tags.
They can thus directly provide semantic tags for their photos that can then be used to improve services such as search.

Semantic Disambiguation in Folksonomy: a Case Study

by Pierre Andrews

co-authored with: Pierre Andrews, Juan Pane, and Ilya Zaihrayeu

published in: Advanced Language Technologies for Digital Libraries, Springer's Lecture Notes on Computer Science (LNCS), Hot Topic subline, 2011.

  Social annotation systems such as del.icio.us, Flickr and others have gained tremendous popularity among Web... more   Social annotation systems such as del.icio.us, Flickr and others have gained tremendous popularity among Web 2.0 users. One of the factors of success was the simplicity of the underlying model, which consists of a resource (e.g., a web page), a tag (e.g., a text string), and a user who annotates the resource with the tag. However, due to the syntactic nature of the underlying model, these systems have been criticised for not being able to take into account the explicit semantics implicitly encoded by the users in each tag.
  In this article we: a) provide a formalisation of an annotation model in which tags are based on concepts instead of being free text strings; b) describe how an existing annotation system can be converted to the proposed model; c) report on the results of such a conversion on the example of a del.icio.us dataset; and d) show how the quality of search can be improved by the semantic in the converted dataset.

Information Architecture In Information Literate User Communities

by Jonathan Burke

Written as Master of Information Management coursework, 2009.

Although fundamentally different in approach, a controlled vocabulary and a folksonomy can be synthesized to produce a... more Although fundamentally different in approach, a controlled vocabulary and a folksonomy can be synthesized to produce a successful information architecture which minimizes the weaknesses of each, whilst obtaining their strengths.  Such a synthesis depends on a third element, a professionally informed amateur information community.

Information Architecture In Information Literate User Communities

by Jonathan Burke

Written as Master of Information Management coursework, 2009.

Although fundamentally different in approach, a controlled vocabulary and a folksonomy can be synthesized to produce a... more Although fundamentally different in approach, a controlled vocabulary and a folksonomy can be synthesized to produce a successful information architecture which minimizes the weaknesses of each, whilst obtaining their strengths.  Such a synthesis depends on a third element, a professionally informed amateur information community.

Collaborative tagging, folksonomies, distributed classification or ethnoclassification: a literature review

by Edith Speller

published in 'Library Student Journal', 2007

Tagging, folksonomy, distributed classification, ethnoclassification—however it is labelled, the concept of users... more Tagging, folksonomy, distributed classification, ethnoclassification—however it is labelled, the concept of users creating and aggregating their own metadata is gaining ground on the internet. This literature review briefly defines the topic at hand, looking at current implementations and summarizing key advantages and disadvantages of distributed classification systems with reference to prominent folksonomy commentators.

After considering whether distributed classification can replace expert catalogers entirely, it concludes that distributed classification can make an important contribution to digital information organisation, but that it may need to be integrated with more traditional organisation tools to overcome its current weaknesses.

Exploiting Semantic Web Techniques for Representing and Utilising Folksonomies

by Cécile Bothorel