Collaborative tagging as a knowledge organisation and resource discovery tool

The purpose of the paper is to provide an overview of the collaborative tagging phenomenon and explore some of the reasons for its emergence. Design/methodology/approach - The paper reviews the related literature and discusses some of the problems associated with, and the potential of, collaborative tagging approaches for knowledge organisation and general resource discovery. A definition of controlled vocabularies is proposed and used to assess the efficacy of collaborative tagging. An exposition of the collaborative tagging model is provided and a review of the major contributions to the tagging literature is presented. Findings - There are numerous difficulties with collaborative tagging systems (e.g. low precision, lack of collocation, etc.) that originate from the absence of properties that characterise controlled vocabularies. However, such systems can not be dismissed. Librarians and information professionals have lessons to learn from the interactive and social aspects exemplified by collaborative tagging systems, as well as their success in engaging users with information management. The future co-existence of controlled vocabularies and collaborative tagging is predicted, with each appropriate for use within distinct information contexts: formal and informal. Research limitations/implications - Librarians and information professional researchers should be playing a leading role in research aimed at assessing the efficacy of collaborative tagging in relation to information storage, organisation, and retrieval, and to influence the future development of collaborative tagging systems. Practical implications - The paper indicates clear areas where digital libraries and repositories could innovate in order to better engage users with information. Originality/value - At time of writing there were no literature reviews summarising the main contributions to the collaborative tagging research or debate

Library and information science publishing : global open access

Brief article describing E-LIS, an open access repository for library and information science material in a range of formats and languages. E-LIS was set up in 2003 with initial funding from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, in line with the Free Online Scholarship (FOS) and Eprints movements, and based on Open Archive Initiative (OAI) standards

Investigating the feasibility of a distributed, mapping-based, approach to solving subject interoperability problems in a multi-scheme, cross-service, retrieval environment

The HILT project is researching the problems of facilitating interoperability of subject descriptions in a distributed multi-scheme environment. HILT Phase I found a UK community consensus in favour of utilising an inter-scheme mapping service to improve interoperability. HILT Phase II investigated the approach by building a pilot server, and identified a range of issues that would have to be tackled if an operational service was to be successful. HILT Phase III will implement a centralised version of an M2M pilot, but will aim to design it so that the possibility of a move to a distributed service remains open. This aim will impact on likely future research concerns in Phase III and beyond. Wide adoption of a distributed approach to the problem could lead to the creation of a framework within which regional, national, and international efforts in the area can be harmonised and co-ordinated

Challenges and issues in terminology mapping : a digital library perspective

In light of information retrieval problems caused by the use of different subject schemes, this paper provides an overview of the terminology problem within the digital library field. Various proposed solutions are outlined and issues within one approach - terminology mapping are highlighted.Desk-based review of existing research. Findings - Discusses benefits of the mapping approach, which include improved retrieval effectiveness for users and an opportunity to overcome problems associated with the use of multilingual schemes. Also describes various drawbacks such as the labour intensive nature and expense of such an approach, the different levels of granularity in existing schemes, and the high maintenance requirements due to scheme updates, and not least the nature of user terminology. General review of mapping techniques as a potential solution to the terminology problem

HILT : High-Level Thesaurus Project. Phase IV and Embedding Project Extension : Final Report

Ensuring that Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) users of the JISC IE can find appropriate learning, research and information resources by subject search and browse in an environment where most national and institutional service providers - usually for very good local reasons - use different subject schemes to describe their resources is a major challenge facing the JISC domain (and, indeed, other domains beyond JISC). Encouraging the use of standard terminologies in some services (institutional repositories, for example) is a related challenge. Under the auspices of the HILT project, JISC has been investigating mechanisms to assist the community with this problem through a JISC Shared Infrastructure Service that would help optimise the value obtained from expenditure on content and services by facilitating subject-search-based resource sharing to benefit users in the learning and research communities. The project has been through a number of phases, with work from earlier phases reported, both in published work elsewhere, and in project reports (see the project website: http://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/). HILT Phase IV had two elements - the core project, whose focus was 'to research, investigate and develop pilot solutions for problems pertaining to cross-searching multi-subject scheme information environments, as well as providing a variety of other terminological searching aids', and a short extension to encompass the pilot embedding of routines to interact with HILT M2M services in the user interfaces of various information services serving the JISC community. Both elements contributed to the developments summarised in this report

Murramarang Beach

The site I chose to reflect on is Murramarang beach. This is an important place when thinking about Aboriginal political history, as it depicts life prior to colonisation but was also significant during colonisation. Murramarang would have been the carinya (‘happy home’) to either a single tribe or a meeting place between surrounding tribes, but my connection to this land lies in it being my second place of home

Popularity over Relevance in Collaborative Tagging Systems for General Resource Discovery

Although services offering collaborative tagging provide rich interactive experiences that exemplify a sense of community among disparate user groups, their raison d'être ultimately remains similar to traditional information retrieval systems. In this paper we will explore potential conflict between user requirements for PIM and CIM, and the theme of popularity over relevance by revisiting basic information retrieval principles within the context of collaborative tagging. The long-term implications of these factors for the efficacy of collaborative tagging in general resource discovery will also be examined. The theoretical analysis presented suggests that PIM requirements conflict with the wider requirements of resource discovery by invoking a series of extra relevance variables and that emphasis on popularly used tags and the subsequent effect on ‘collective behavior’ potentially compromises the effectiveness of system performance. Hypotheses are proposed for testing and further research areas are suggested

Summary of High-level Thesaurus (HILT) Mapping Work - Principal Results

One continuing problem inherent in the terminology mapping process - whether intellectual or automated - is accurately characterising the type of mapping match found between terminologies. The assumption underpinning mapping is that equivalence can exist between disparate Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) and their respective terminologies; however, exact equivalence is rarely attainable. This brief report summarises terminology mapping and equivalence issues found as part of the Jisc funded High-level Thesaurus (HILT) project (phase III), in particular the match types required to support machine-to-machine (M2M) terminology services

High-level Thesaurus (HILT) Phase III [Final Report] : Evaluation Report

An evaluation stage of the HILT Phase III pilot M2M demonstrator was to be undertaken following completion of the main development work (November/December 2006). The aim was to determine whether the pilot demonstrator operates as specified in the requirements document and, hence, whether it correctly delivers the functionality needed to meet the five use cases (devised during the preceding feasibility study). Outcomes will be used to inform the system refinement process, due to occur in January 2007. Six SOAP functions were designed to meet the functionality required by each of the use cases, either singly or in combination, and the working pilot is best tested by examining whether each part of the system architecture (see Figure 1) operates as specified in the requirements document when any given one of the functions is called. This report documents the use cases being addressed, the nature of the functions designed to meet the use cases, how each part of the system is required to operate when a function is called, methodologies determined to assess the satisfactory performance of functions, and associated results. It is not the intention of this evaluation to study the quality of mappings or retrieval performance. Results presented will enable the identification of issues or errors within the system as it is currently implemented (or requirements as currently specified) and any additional requirements for development beyond Phase III will be noted

High-level Thesaurus (HILT) Phase III [Project] : Final Report

An evaluation stage of the HILT Phase III pilot M2M demonstrator was to be undertaken following completion of the main development work (November/December 2006). The aim was to determine whether the pilot demonstrator operates as specified in the requirements document and, hence, whether it correctly delivers the functionality needed to meet the five use cases (devised during the preceding feasibility study). Outcomes will be used to inform the system refinement process, due to occur in January 2007. Six SOAP functions were designed to meet the functionality required by each of the use cases, either singly or in combination, and the working pilot is best tested by examining whether each part of the system architecture (see Figure 1) operates as specified in the requirements document when any given one of the functions is called. This report documents the use cases being addressed, the nature of the functions designed to meet the use cases, how each part of the system is required to operate when a function is called, methodologies determined to assess the satisfactory performance of functions, and associated results. It is not the intention of this evaluation to study the quality of mappings or retrieval performance. Results presented will enable the identification of issues or errors within the system as it is currently implemented (or requirements as currently specified) and any additional requirements for development beyond Phase III will be noted