Classification design : understanding the decisions between theory and consequence

Classification systems are systems of terms and term relationships intended to sort and gather like concepts and documents. These systems are ubiquitous as the substrate of our interactions with library collections, retail websites, and bureaucracies. Through their design and impact, classification systems share with other technologies an unavoidable though often ignored relationship to politics, power, and authority (Fleischmann & Wallace, 2007). Despite concern among scholars that classification systems embody values and bias, there is little work examining how these qualities are built into a classification system. Specifically, we do not adequately understand classification construction, in which classification designers make decisions by applying classification theory to the specific context of a project (Park, 2008). If systems embody values— particularly values that might either cause harm (Berman, 1971) or provide an additional means of communicating the creator’s position (Feinberg, 2007)— we must understand how and when the system takes on these qualities. This dissertation bridges critical classification theory with design-oriented classification theory. Where critical classification theory is concerned with the outcomes of classification system design, design-oriented classification theory is concerned with the correct processes by which to build a classification system. To connect the consequences of classification system design to designers’ methods and intentions, I use the research lens of infrastructure studies, particularly infrastructural inversion (Star & Ruhleder, 1996) or making visible the work behind infrastructures such as classification systems. Accordingly, my research focuses on designers’ decisions and rethinks our assumptions regarding the factors that classification designers consider in making their design decisions. I adopted an ethnographic approach to the study of classification design that would make visible design decisions and designers’ consideration of factors. Using this approach, I studied the daily design work of volunteer classification designers who maintain a curated folksonomy. Using the grounded theory method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), I analyzed the designers’ decisions. My analysis identified the implications of the designers’ convergences and divergences from established classification methods for the character of the system and for the connection between classification theory and classification methods. I show how the factors—and the prioritization of factors—that these designers considered in making their decisions were consistent with the values and needs of the community. Therefore, I argue that classification designers have an important role in creating the values or bias of a classification system. In particular, designers’ divergence from universal guidelines and designers’ choices among sources of evidence represent opportunities to align a classification system to its community. I recommend that classification research focus on such instances of divergence and choice to understand the connection between classification design and the values of classification systems. The Introduction motivates the problem space around values in classification systems and outlines my approach in focusing on classification design. The Literature Review outlines the dominant theories in classification scholarship according to three elements of classification design: what decisions designers make, what information designers use in their decisions, and what skills designers apply to their decisions. In the Methods chapter, I introduce the site of my ethnographic research (The Fanwork Repository), detail my ethnographic methods, summarize the types of data I collected, and describe my grounded analysis. Three findings chapters examine one type of complex decision each: Names, Works, and Guidelines, respectively. In the fourth findings chapter, Synthesis, I define 10 factors designers considered across these complex design decisions. I then discuss how the factors figured into complex design decisions, how the factors overlapped and conflicted in design decisions, and how designers understood their role in making complex design decisions. In the Discussion chapter I connect the findings from the site of my ethnography to classification scholarship. In the Conclusion, I consider the contribution of examining classification systems as infrastructure, highlight the differences in accounts of classification design decisions made visible through classification theory and infrastructure studies approaches, and present suggestions for future research in classification design and the study of classification systems as infrastructure.Informatio

Facebook Photo Tagging Culture and Practices Among Digital Natives

Social Networking Services (SNS) have gained immense popularity in developing countries like India,where digital natives are actively communicating on these platforms. Understanding the interactionbetween technology systems and digital natives, and proposing guidelines and recommendations for thedevelopment of better systems is highly valuable. Prior research examining users’ motivations and actualusage of photo tagging systems is limited, and predominately focused on Flickr and adult users. In order tounderstand in detail why, how, and with whom users tag digital photos on Facebook, a qualitative essaybasedexploratory study is organized with 67 digital natives in India. The study aims to build understandingof the various gratifications, motivations, experiences, and practices associated with Facebook phototagging, focusing on technologically savvy Indian digital natives. Our results reveal that photo taggingpractices by digital natives vary substantially, especially among gender groups. Facebook photo tagging ispopular among Indian boys, and they are more willing to embrace and use it. Meanwhile, involvement ofIndian girls is considerably limited, as they tend to avoid Facebook photo tagging, mainly due to privacyconcerns, as well as social norms and pressures.Peer reviewe

Discourse and Digital Practices

Discourse and Digital Practices shows how tools from discourse analysis can be used to help us understand new communication practices associated with digital media, from video gaming and social networking to apps and photo sharing. This cutting-edge book: draws together fourteen eminent scholars in the field including James Paul Gee, David Barton, Ilana Snyder, Phil Benson, Victoria Carrington, Guy Merchant, Camilla Vasquez, Neil Selwyn and Rodney Jones answers the central question: "How does discourse analysis enable us to understand digital practices?" addresses a different type of digital media in each chapter demonstrates how digital practices and the associated new technologies challenge discourse analysts to adapt traditional analytic tools and formulate new theories and methodologies examines digital practices from a wide variety of approaches including textual analysis, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, multimodal discourse analysis, object ethnography, geosemiotics, and critical discourse analysis. Discourse and Digital Practices will be of interest to advanced students studying courses on digital literacies or language and digital practices

Social Knowledge Creation: Three Annotated Bibliographies

In 2012-2013 a team led by Ray Siemens at the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab (ETCL), University of Victoria, in collaboration with Implementing New Knowledge Environments (INKE), developed three annotated bibliographies under the rubric of social knowledge creation. The items for the bibliographies were gathered and annotated by members of the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab (ETCL) to form this tripartite document as a resource for students and researchers involved in the iNKE team and well beyond, iincluding at digital humanities seminars in Bern (June 2013) and Leipzig (July 2013)

Serious leisure in the digital world: exploring the information behaviour of fan communities

This research investigates the information behaviour of cult media fan communities on the internet, using three novel methods which have not previously been applied to this domain. Firstly, a review, analysis and synthesis of the literature related to fan information behaviour, both within the disciplines of LIS and fan studies, revealed unique aspects of fan information behaviour, particularly in regards to produsage, copyright, and creativity. The findings from this literature analysis were subsequently investigated further using the Delphi method and tag analysis. A new Delphi variant – the Serious Leisure Delphi – was developed through this research. The Delphi study found that participants expressed the greatest levels of consensus on statements on fan behaviour that were related to information behaviour and information-related issues. Tag analysis was used in a novel way, as a tool to examine information behaviour. This found that fans have developed a highly granular classification system for fanworks, and that on one particular repository a ‘curated folksonomy’ was being used with great success. Fans also use tags for a variety of reasons, including communicating with one another, and writing meta-commentary on their posts. The research found that fans have unique information behaviours related to classification, copyright, entrepreneurship, produsage, mentorship and publishing. In the words of Delphi participants – “being in fandom means being in a knowledge space,” and “fandom is a huge information hub just by existing”. From these findings a model of fan information behaviour has been developed, which could be further tested in future research

Discourse and Digital Practices

Discourse and Digital Practices shows how tools from discourse analysis can be used to help us understand new communication practices associated with digital media, from video gaming and social networking to apps and photo sharing. This cutting-edge book: draws together fourteen eminent scholars in the field including James Paul Gee, David Barton, Ilana Snyder, Phil Benson, Victoria Carrington, Guy Merchant, Camilla Vasquez, Neil Selwyn and Rodney Jones answers the central question: "How does discourse analysis enable us to understand digital practices?" addresses a different type of digital media in each chapter demonstrates how digital practices and the associated new technologies challenge discourse analysts to adapt traditional analytic tools and formulate new theories and methodologies examines digital practices from a wide variety of approaches including textual analysis, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, multimodal discourse analysis, object ethnography, geosemiotics, and critical discourse analysis. Discourse and Digital Practices will be of interest to advanced students studying courses on digital literacies or language and digital practices

#MPLP: a Comparison of Domain Novice and Expert User-generated Tags in a Minimally Processed Digital Archive

The high costs of creating and maintaining digital archives precluded many archives from providing users with digital content or increasing the amount of digitized materials. Studies have shown users increasingly demand immediate online access to archival materials with detailed descriptions (access points). The adoption of minimal processing to digital archives limits the access points at the folder or series level rather than the item-level description users\u27 desire. User-generated content such as tags, could supplement the minimally processed metadata, though users are reluctant to trust or use unmediated tags. This dissertation project explores the potential for controlling/mediating the supplemental metadata from user-generated tags through inclusion of only expert domain user-generated tags. The study was designed to answer three research questions with two parts each: 1(a) What are the similarities and differences between tags generated by expert and novice users in a minimally processed digital archive?, 1(b) Are there differences between expert and novice users\u27 opinions of the tagging experience and tag creation considerations?, 2(a) In what ways do tags generated by expert and/or novice users in a minimally processed collection correspond with metadata in a traditionally processed digital archive?, 2(b) Does user knowledge affect the proportion of tags matching unselected metadata in a minimally processed digital archive?, 3(a) In what ways do tags generated by expert and/or novice users in a minimally processed collection correspond with existing users\u27 search terms in a digital archive?, and 3(b) Does user knowledge affect the proportion of tags matching query terms in a minimally processed digital archive? The dissertation project was a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design focused on tag generation within a sample minimally processed digital archive. The study used a sample collection of fifteen documents and fifteen photographs. Sixty participants divided into two groups (novices and experts) based on assessed prior knowledge of the sample collection\u27s domain generated tags for fifteen documents and fifteen photographs (a minimum of one tag per object). Participants completed a pre-questionnaire identifying prior knowledge, and use of social tagging and archives. Additionally, participants provided their opinions regarding factors associated with tagging including the tagging experience and considerations while creating tags through structured and open-ended questions in a post-questionnaire. An open-coding analysis of the created tags developed a coding scheme of six major categories and six subcategories. Application of the coding scheme categorized all generated tags. Additional descriptive statistics summarized the number of tags created by each domain group (expert, novice) for all objects and divided by format (photograph, document). T-tests and Chi-square tests explored the associations (and associative strengths) between domain knowledge and the number of tags created or types of tags created for all objects and divided by format. The subsequent analysis compared the tags with the metadata from the existing collection not displayed within the sample collection participants used. Descriptive statistics summarized the proportion of tags matching unselected metadata and Chi-square tests analyzed the findings for associations with domain knowledge. Finally, the author extracted existing users\u27 query terms from one month of server-log data and compared the generated-tags and unselected metadata. Descriptive statistics summarized the proportion of tags and unselected metadata matching query terms, and Chi-square tests analyzed the findings for associations with domain knowledge. Based on the findings, the author discussed the theoretical and practical implications of including social tags within a minimally processed digital archive

Retrieval of LGBTQ+ Recreational Reading Material: A Comparative Study

Over the past few decades, a sizeable body of library and information science literature has pointed to the inadequacies of traditional cataloging and classification systems for describing material related to marginalized communities. At the same time, alternative metadata systems have proliferated in online environments and social tagging has become almost ubiquitous. Focused specifically on the retrieval of LGBTQ+-related recreational reading materials, this study used an online survey to assess the utility of traditional library systems in comparison with the utility of the user-moderated folksonomy employed in the Archive of Our Own (AO3) fanwork repository. Results indicated that respondents, who were generally comfortable in both the library and Archive environments, preferred using AO3 to access LGBTQ+ material and perceived the tagging system to be of greater value in search processes than typical subject access mechanisms. Several possible avenues for improving current systems emerge in the conclusion of the paper.Master of Science in Information Scienc

Serious Leisure In The Digital World: Exploring The Information Behaviour Of Fan Communities

This research investigates the information behaviour of cult media fan communities on the internet, using three novel methods which have not previously been applied to this domain. Firstly, a review, analysis and synthesis of the literature related to fan information behaviour, both within the disciplines of LIS and fan studies, revealed unique aspects of fan information behaviour, particularly in regards to produsage, copyright, and creativity. The findings from this literature analysis were subsequently investigated further using the Delphi method and tag analysis. A new Delphi variant – the Serious Leisure Delphi – was developed through this research. The Delphi study found that participants expressed the greatest levels of consensus on statements on fan behaviour that were related to information behaviour and information-related issues. Tag analysis was used in a novel way, as a tool to examine information behaviour. This found that fans have developed a highly granular classification system for fanworks, and that on one particular repository a ‘curated folksonomy’ was being used with great success. Fans also use tags for a variety of reasons, including communicating with one another, and writing meta-commentary on their posts. The research found that fans have unique information behaviours related to classification, copyright, entrepreneurship, produsage, mentorship and publishing. In the words of Delphi participants – “being in fandom means being in a knowledge space,” and “fandom is a huge information hub just by existing”. From these findings a model of fan information behaviour has been developed, which could be further tested in future research