1. Social Tagging and
Folksonomies
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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
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3. Basic Model for Tagging
Systems
USER
RESOURCES
TAGS
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8. Don’t confuse tags with keywords
or full-text searching
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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
It’s more about connecting items rather than
categorizing them.
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9. Tags can be…
 Descriptions
of the subject matter
 Where the item is located
 The intended use of the item
 Individual
 Different people have different tagging
patterns
 Tagging systems encourage differences
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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
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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”
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12. Types of Tagging Systems
 Managing
personal information
 Social bookmarking
 Collecting and sharing digital objects
 Improving the e-commerce experience
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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
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14. What is a folksonomy?
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Folksonomy refers to an “emergent, grassroots
taxonomy”
An aggregate collections of tags
 A bottom-up categorical structure development
 An emergent thesaurus
According to Wikipedia: A folksonomy is the practice and
method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to
annotate and categorize content. In contrast to traditional
subject indexing, metadata is generated not only by
experts but also by creators and consumers of the
content. Usually, freely chosen keywords are used
instead of a controlled vocabulary
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15. What makes folksonomies
popular?
 Their
dynamic nature works well with
dynamic resources
 They’re personal
 They lower barriers to cooperation
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16. Strengths of folksonomies
 Cost-effective
way to organize Internet.
 Social benefits.
 It’s inclusive.
 For many environments, they work well.
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17. Weaknesses of folksonomies
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They do not yield the level of clarity that controlled
vocabularies do.
Term ambiguity – words with multiple meanings
No synonym control.
Singular and plural forms create redundant headings
No guidelines for the use of compound headings,
punctuation, word order
No scope notes and no cross references
How does wrong information impact retrieval
 Conflicting cultural norms
 Sometimes authority counts
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