Listening to our Visitors Steve.museum and the impact of social tagging for access to online collections. WebWise 2008, 10:45 am – 12:15 pm 05/06/08 Robert Stein, Chief Information Officer Indianapolis Museum of Art [email_address]

Who is Steve? Steve is collaboration of museums Steve is exploring the effectiveness of social tagging for accessing and documenting museum collections

Steve is collaboration of museums

Steve is exploring the effectiveness of social tagging for accessing and documenting museum collections

Why Study Social Tagging? Can tagging help me find art easier? Do visitors give museums new and valuable information? Can tagging change the way I look at art?

Can tagging help me find art easier?

Do visitors give museums new and valuable information?

Can tagging change the way I look at art?

What Steve has been up to. Steve has completed the first year of a two year research grant from IMLS Steve has completed three phases of data collection experiments and is currently entering its fourth phase Experiments focus on understanding the behavior of web visitors who tag art

Steve has completed the first year of a two year research grant from IMLS

Steve has completed three phases of data collection experiments and is currently entering its fourth phase

Experiments focus on understanding the behavior of web visitors who tag art

A Few Statistics 2 Deployments of steve Multi-institutional Single Institutional Hosted by The Metropolitan Museum of Art

2 Deployments of steve

Multi-institutional

Single Institutional

Hosted by The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Data Collection Overview Multi-Institutional Deployment Please visit http://tagger.steve.museum 4103 users (784 registered – 3352 anonymous) 1784 Works of Art 35,776 Tags assigned

Multi-Institutional Deployment

Please visit http://tagger.steve.museum

4103 users (784 registered – 3352 anonymous)

1784 Works of Art

35,776 Tags assigned

Data Collection Overview Single Institution Deployment Recruited specifically by MMA 850 registered users 252 Works of Art 51,477 Tags assigned!!!

Single Institution Deployment

Recruited specifically by MMA

850 registered users

252 Works of Art

51,477 Tags assigned!!!

Steve Reporting Tool XML Schema for Reports

Overview of Experiments 1. Tell Me What I’m Seeing. - Meta-Data vs. No Meta-Data

1. Tell Me What I’m Seeing. - Meta-Data vs. No Meta-Data

Meta-data or Not…

Preliminary Insights More Tags without Metadata “ Taggers who do not see metadata seem to supply more tags. There were an average of 4.5 terms supplied when metadata was shown compared to 5.75 when only an image was shown without any description” (Trant 2007) 28% increase in tagging

More Tags without Metadata

“ Taggers who do not see metadata seem to supply more tags. There were an average of 4.5 terms supplied when metadata was shown compared to 5.75 when only an image was shown without any description” (Trant 2007)

28% increase in tagging

Overview of Experiments 1a. Getting in the Groove - Sets vs. No Sets

1a. Getting in the Groove

- Sets vs. No Sets

Sets or Not…

Preliminary Insights More Tags with Sets “ In TermSet 1 the average number of tags per work was 4.6 for users who saw random works, and 5.8 for users who saw sets.” (Trant 2007) 26% increase

More Tags with Sets

“ In TermSet 1 the average number of tags per work was 4.6 for users who saw random works, and 5.8 for users who saw sets.” (Trant 2007)

26% increase

Overview of Experiments 2. What Other People Say? - Tags vs. No Tags

2. What Other People Say? - Tags vs. No Tags

Tags +/- Meta-data

Preliminary Insights More Tags with Tags In TermSet 2 the average number of tags per work was 7.1 for users who were shown tags from others versus 5.7 tags per work for users who were not shown other’s tags. 24.5% increase

More Tags with Tags

In TermSet 2 the average number of tags per work was 7.1 for users who were shown tags from others versus 5.7 tags per work for users who were not shown other’s tags.

24.5% increase

Overview of Experiments 3. It’s My Turn to Pick! - Pick by Image and Pick by Tag

3. It’s My Turn to Pick! - Pick by Image and Pick by Tag

Pick Images to Tag

Make a Set from Tags

Some Very Early Thoughts Just finished the data collection for this experiment Anecdotal Observations Session length appears shorter Terms per work down Works tagged per session down

Just finished the data collection for this experiment

Anecdotal Observations

Session length appears shorter

Terms per work down

Works tagged per session down

DEMO: Steve Tagger

Overview of Experiments 4. Sharing is Good… - Facebook and Email Integration

4. Sharing is Good… - Facebook and Email Integration

Send to Facebook Friends

Email to a Friend

Facebook Profile Pages

Facebook App Pages

DEMO: Steve Facebook Integration

Term Review Term by Term classification by Institutions. Useful for mapping the quality and character of terms as judged by the institution.

Term by Term classification by Institutions.

Useful for mapping the quality and character of terms as judged by the institution.

Term Review Classified as: Useful / Not Useful for describing or finding the specific work of art. Positive or Negative Opinions of the art Misperception of the work Foreign Language Term Misspelling Very Personal Meaning

Classified as:

Useful / Not Useful for describing or finding the specific work of art.

Positive or Negative Opinions of the art

Misperception of the work

Foreign Language Term

Misspelling

Very Personal Meaning

Term Review

Term Review

Term Review

Finding Matches How can we tell if these are new words or not? Direct match against museum object metadata (i.e. artist, title, materials, etc…) Direct match against thesauri (i.e. AAT, ULAN, TGN) How about terms that aren’t direct matches?

How can we tell if these are new words or not?

Direct match against museum object metadata (i.e. artist, title, materials, etc…)

Direct match against thesauri (i.e. AAT, ULAN, TGN)

How about terms that aren’t direct matches?

Finding Matches Use WordNet to facilitate mapping classes of terms to AAT facets Attempt to find a distribution of terms as they relate to concepts in AAT (or NOT) Attributes and Properties, Built Environment, Color, Furnishings and Equipment, Materials, People, Physical and Mental Activities, Processes and Techniques, Styles and Periods, Visual and Verbal Communications

Use WordNet to facilitate mapping classes of terms to AAT facets

Attempt to find a distribution of terms as they relate to concepts in AAT (or NOT)

Attributes and Properties, Built Environment, Color, Furnishings and Equipment, Materials, People, Physical and Mental Activities, Processes and Techniques, Styles and Periods, Visual and Verbal Communications

Steve in the Wild Steve is Open Source Software and available from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/steve-museum The Steve software platform has been built in such a way that other institutions can use tagging for their own websites The Steve team is eager to see social tagging adopted widely among museums

Steve is Open Source Software and available from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/steve-museum

The Steve software platform has been built in such a way that other institutions can use tagging for their own websites

The Steve team is eager to see social tagging adopted widely among museums

Indianapolis Museum of Art

Indianapolis Museum of Art

Indianapolis Museum of Art

ArtsConnectEd2

ArtsConnectEd2

Where’s Steve Going? Make Steve Easy for others to deploy Investigate what it means to do In Gallery tagging. How does enthusiast tagging play a role in museums?

Make Steve Easy for others to deploy

Investigate what it means to do In Gallery tagging.

How does enthusiast tagging play a role in museums?

Get to know Steve Visit the Steve website http://www.steve.museum Join the Steve mailing list [email_address] Help a guy out! Do some tagging! http://tagger.steve.museum http://apps.facebook.com/stevemuseum

Visit the Steve website http://www.steve.museum

Join the Steve mailing list [email_address]

Help a guy out! Do some tagging! http://tagger.steve.museum http://apps.facebook.com/stevemuseum