Download Lesson 2.3 Tagging and Bookmarking Learning objective: By the

Lesson 2.3 Tagging and Bookmarking
Learning objective:
By the end of this lesson, you will understand the concept and purpose of social tagging. You will also
learn about social bookmarking and how tagging works in other social networking services.
Introduction
The amount of information available on the Internet has created challenges and advantages when
looking for specific data and resources.
Traditionally, information resources were categorized in archives, indexes and repositories that followed
rules for classification. These rules helped people finding information by carefully describing and
classifying content. For example, libraries made books easy to find by keeping records of Authors,
Titles and Topics.
Electronic resources present different challenges than books traditional information resources. One of
the ways to describe electronic resources is to use metadata. Metadata supports and allows the
development of several search and visualization technologies.
Metadata is data that is used to describe electronic information resources according to different
standards and classification practices. For example, metadata can indicate the title of a PDF document,
the place where a digital photograph was taken, or the author of a song on an mp3 file. Usually we
can't see metadata because it's embedded in the code on an electronic file.
Learning step 2.3.1 Tagging and bookmarking
"Tagging" is a term used to describe human indexing of material on the Web, in order to make it more
easy to find and share.
You can "tag" an item by associating it with key words that describe the content.
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Tagging is, in a way, describing the content of a web resource in your own words. For example, when
you find a web page about "Community participation in Rural Electrification projects", you could
describe its content with a series of words: "community", "electrification", "electricity", "participation",
"methodologies", "rural", "energy", "infrastructure" etc
Tagging provides content with context and meaning. For example, when you take a digital photograph
of a fishing boat and you tag it as: "fishing", "sustainable", "turtles" "campaign", "Orissa", "India" etc.
This not only provides information about the picture itself, but also about its purpose, context and
place.
When a large group of people "tag" the same pages with their own terms, they create a "folksonomy"
to describe content. A folksonomy is a collaborative categorization of content using freely chosen
keywords.
Some services and tools use "fixed tags" and "free tags". Fixed tags are pre-defined sets of words to
categorize content in a more consistent way. Free tagging allow users to use any word they want to
describe the content and context of an information resource.
Learning step 2.3.2 Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is one of the most extended uses of social tagging on the web.
When you're exploring the Internet, you come across interesting pages and sometimes you want to
save them in order to re-visit them later. Most web browsers offer a "Bookmarks" folder where you can
save and organize the web addresses you've saved.
Social Bookmaring services allow you to save those web addresses on the web, under a personal
account, and tag each page you find with keywords. Having your bookmarks on the web makes them
easy to tag, organize and share. At the same time, you benefit from having other people tagging and
making relationships between web pages you may also find interesting.
One of the most popular services for keeping and sharing social bookmarks is del.icio.us.
Del.icio.us allows you to:
Create a free account
Tag and save the interesting pages you find on the web
Find other pages that may interest you
Share your bookmarks with others
Publish your bookmarks on the web or embed them in your site
Del.icio.us allows you to see how other users have tagged pages, what is the most popular content at a
given time, and what other pages have been described with the same terms you've used. This
aggregation is the result of the collective thinking and collaboration of a large group of people all over
the world.
Learning step 2.3.3 Visualization
There are different ways in which sites and services allow you to visualize the aggregated tags that you
and other users have created. For example:
Tag clouds:
Words appear listed alphabetically but in different size or color fonts, depending on how frequently
they've been used.
Example: Technorati, a popular blog aggregator, uses tag clouds to illustrate the most popular tags
used by bloggers in the last hour, and the top 100 tags.
http://www.technorati.com/tag/
Aggregated lists:
Words appear on a list ordered by most used tags, latest tags, or configured by user preferences
Example: Del.icio.us allows users to display their own tags on a list by frequency of use, alphabetically,
by minimun number of appearences or by groups.
Search by tag:
Allows users to search other content where the same tag has been used
Example: Flickr.com allows users to search either the "full text" of titles and picture descriptions, or by
"tags only", for more specific results:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=&w=all
Tag combinations:
Display content that is associated with two or more terms.
Example Flickr.com presents its users with tag "clusters", groups of tags that are usually related and
used together by users. When exploring the tag "health", you can choose for example to explore the
cluster that contains the tags "food, fruit, healty, diet and others" or the cluster that contains
"medicine, doctor, hospital, medical and others"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/health/clusters/
Learning step 2.3.4 Other uses
Tags are used in multiple social networking services and sites. Tags are the way that allows users to
categorize content such as blog posts, photos and links.
Tags are also used to aggregate content about users. Most social networking servicess allow you to list
your "interests", your "favorite books" etc. These terms are converted to tags that allow you and others
to locate other users with similar interest and preferences.
Tags are one way of allowing intuitive navigation on a website. The website visitors can find content by
keywords and term association rather than in formal menus and buttons.
Tags improve search results by providing a more detailed and specific description of an item's content.
For example if you consistently tag your website content as "women", "finance", "microcredit", "social
enterprise" and "local enterprise", search engines will likely list your website to users that have used
those terms.
Summary screen
Electronic resources present different challenges than books traditional information resources. One of
the ways to describe electronic resources is to use metadata. Metadata supports and allows the
development of several search and visualization technologies.
Tagging is, in a way, describing the content of a web resource in your own words. Tagging provides
content with context and meaning.
Social Bookmaring services allow you to save web addresses on the Internet, under a personal account,
and tag each page you find with keywords.
There are different ways in which sites and services allow you to visualize the aggregated tags that you
and other users have created. For example tag clouds, aggregated lists, tag searches and tag
combinations.
Tags are used in multiple social networking services and sites with different purposes: aggregating
content about users, providing intuitive navigation and improving search results.
Knowledge Assessment
1. True/False
Statement question: Tagging is describing the content of a web resource in your own words. Tagging
can provide content with context and meaning.
Correct answer: True
Feedback correct answer: Correct. Tagging is also a form of metadata that uses words to describe the
content of an electronic resource.
Feedback incorrect answer: That's incorrect. Tagging is a form of metadata that uses words to describe
the content of an electronic resource. Try again!
2. Multiple responses
Statement/Question: These are some of the advantages of using social bookmarking:
Item
Item
Item
Item
Item
option
option
option
option
option
1
2
3
4
5
Saving web addresses to visit later
Sharing files over the Internet
Tag and describe content to make it easier to find
Keep contact records and email addresses
Sharing your bookmarks with others in your group
Correct answer: 1, 3, 5
Feedback correct answer: Correct. That's why social bookmarking is one of the most popular uses of
tagging on the web.
Feedback incorrect answer: Incorrect. Are those common uses of social bookmarking tools? Try again!
3. Matching
Statetement question: Match a the following topics with possible groups of tags:
Traditional medicine - "recipes", "plants", "health", "traditions", "oral history", "ingredients"
Climate change - "global warming", "climate", "disasters", "pollution", "environment"
Local languages - "translation", "dictionaries", "words", "speech", "language", "localization"
Education - "schools", "learning", "teachers", "training", "materials", "lessons"
Feedback correct answer: Correct! Those are good tags to describe the topic. You probably can think
of many more!
Feedback incorrect answer: Incorrect. Try to use words that describe the topic in a better way.
Resources:
Wikipedia: Tag (metadata)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29
Wikipedia: Tag cloud
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud
Wikipedia: Social bookmarking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking
Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU
Tagging gives web a human meaning
http://www.news.com/Tagging-gives-Web-a-human-meaning/2009-1025_3-5944502.html
What is tagging and practical ways non-profits can use it
http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog/archive/2007/03/15/what-is-tagging-and-practical-waysnon-profits-can-use-it.aspx
What is a folksonomy?
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-folksonomy.htm