Tags by teachers - what's expert indexers' opinion?

Tags by teachers - what's expert indexers' opinion on it? Riina Vuorikari European Schoolnet Eminent 2008

Usefulness of metadata

validity , i.e. creating valid metadata for every learning resource, and
searchability , having the search tools in place to use that metadata.

Barritt, C. and F. Alderman (2004). Creating a Reusable Learning Objects Strategy. San Diego, Pfeiffer.

Metadata externally applied to an item

What is a tag?

Metadata externally applied to an item
Usually by a user , not a librarian or other expert indexer
Personal marker to help associate with the resource
Can be used for sorting or managing
Provides identifier and/or description – easy to get back!

Tags in MELT

1064 individual tags by teachers
Tags used 1994 times in 670 favourites
Tags associated with 463 distinct resources
85 users

1 interactive 50 2 geschiedenis 47 3 Romeinen 43 4 latijn 43 5 Rome 41 6 koolielu 41 7 English 40 8 Romein 33 9 esl 19 10 history 16 11 culture 16 12 efl 15 13 vocabulary 14 14 quiz 13 15 subjonctif 12 16 grammar 11 17 Geografi 10 18 animation 10 19 London 9 20 fizika 9 21 angol 9 25.1% of all tags 501

Evaluation of tags by experts How useful are the tags created by users (e.g. teachers) as metadata descriptors to describe learning resources?

Evaluation of tags by experts 10 learning resources from MELT

Some with high number of tags from teachers
Variety of content, languages and providers

10 – 15 indexer experts from MELT partners

Online questionnaire
Answers gathered in November 2008

Data and resources

Each resource had a different ratio of thesaurus terms and tags
23 thesaurus terms/ 89 tags

Number of Thesaurus terms Number of Tags 5 3 4 9 3 13 3 6 2 7 2 5 1 15 1 18 1 7 1 6 23 89

Evaluation of tags by experts Each resource had a link and 3 questions Q2. The current indexing keywords are: xx, xx. Would you want to revise the original LOM description of the resource and, if so, which of the following terms might you adopt? Q3. Below you can find teachers' keywords. Compared to the current indexing words (xx), estimate their additional value as descriptors. Scale 1 to 5 (Does not add any useful information - Adds very useful information) Option: “I don't understand the word”

Results Q1

110 keywords, both thesaurus terms and tags
401 votes from experts
We use percentage of votes/resource

Both SD quite low, which indicates a low variance in the views of the experts (high agreement) n=401 Thesaurus Tags Average votes 44% 29% Standard dev 0.29 0.24

Results Q1

21 thesaurus terms and 21 most voted tags
265 votes from experts
We use percentage of votes/resource

Most voted tags are relevant for expert indexers too! n=265 Thesaurus Tags Average 44% 65% Standard dev 0.29 0.14

1 interactive 50 2 geschiedenis 47 3 Romeinen 43 4 latijn 43 5 Rome 41 6 koolielu 41 7 English 40 8 Romein 33 9 esl 19 10 history 16 11 culture 16 12 efl 15 13 vocabulary 14 14 quiz 13 15 subjonctif 12 16 grammar 11 17 Geografi 10 18 animation 10 19 London 9 20 fizika 9 21 angol 9 25.1% of all tags 501 Most used tags in MELT Discrepancy between users' needs and expert thinking..

1 interactive 50 2 geschiedenis 47 3 Romeinen 43 4 latijn 43 5 Rome 41 6 koolielu 41 7 English 40 8 Romein 33 9 esl 19 10 history 16 11 culture 16 12 efl 15 13 vocabulary 14 14 quiz 13 15 subjonctif 12 16 grammar 11 17 Geografi 10 18 animation 10 19 London 9 20 fizika 9 21 angol 9 25.1% of all tags 501 Most used tags in MELT Discrepancy between users' needs and expert thinking

TAGS CAN FILL THE GAP!!

Evaluation of tags by experts How useful are the tags created by users (e.g. teachers) as metadata descriptors to describe learning resources? A very provisional answer: they seem useful , but let's wait until the end of the story...

social bookmarks Metadata LOM tags folksonomy social tagging multi-linguality social classification thanks ! for your attention learning resources user communities discover resources and item s questions ? teachers social navigation social traces paths , trails flock