The Dynamics of Collaborative Tagging: An Analysis of Tag Vocabulary Application in Knowledge Representation, Discovery and Retrieval

Abstract

This study investigates the contribution of collaborative tagging to the design of user-driven vocabularies in knowledge management systems (KMS). Three metrics, tag growth, tag reuse, and tag discrimination, were used to examine the evolution of the tagging vocabulary of the knowledge management community of interest in CiteULike over a three-year period. Results indicate a steady decrease in the number of unique tags over the four years, suggesting an increasing stability in the community vocabulary over time and the establishment of domain-specific vocabulary. Members reused each others' tags over time and exhibited increasingly collaborative tagging behaviour. Tag discrimination was high, with 4.11 distinct articles per tag. The stable and discriminatory nature of the community's tags suggests that collaborative tagging may serve as a useful resource for vocabulary choice or maintenance by KMS managers.

Studying tag vocabulary evolution of social tagging systems in learning object repositories

“…9 depicts, the value of the tag discrimination metric for the OSR Repository has been stabilized to 3,65 LOs/tag. This value is lower than the reported by Farooq et al (2007) CiteULike (4,47LOs /tags) and the reported by Makani & Spiteri (2010) value (4,11LOs/tags) in Calibrate Portal.…”

“…The value of the tag reuse metric has been stabilized to 1,797 users/tag. This value is higher than the reported by Farooq et al (2007) value in CiteULike (1,59 users/tag) and the reported by Vuorikari & Ochoa (2009) value (1,22 users/tags) in Calibrate Portal but still quite low if compared to the reported by Makani & Spiteri (2010) value in CiteULike knowledge management community (23 users/tag).…”

“…The authors reported that the websites that contained a larger number of tags followed a power law distribution. Makani & Spiteri (2010) selected three metrics proposed by Farooq et al (2007), namely tag growth, tag reuse, and tag discrimination, to examine the evolution of the tag vocabulary of the knowledge management community of interest in CiteULike. Their results indicated a steady decrease in the number of unique tags over time, suggesting an increasing stability in the community vocabulary and the establishment of domain-specific vocabulary.…”

Usage and applications of Semantic Web techniques and technologies to support chemistry research

“…While it has been demonstrated [42,43] that these approaches yield sets of terms that are fit for purpose, it is debatable whether or not the results may be labelled as “controlled vocabularies”, e.g., it has been shown [44] that these approaches are highly susceptible to the effects of user-bias. In contrast, our approach, where terms are drawn from a community-approved, expertly-composed text, yields a true controlled vocabulary.…”

“…Currently, publications are characterised using terms that are either arbitrarily selected by authors/editors or (semi-)automatically extracted from the content of the publication by software systems [ 41 ]. While it has been demonstrated [ 42 , 43 ] that these approaches yield sets of terms that are fit for purpose, it is debatable whether or not the results may be labelled as “controlled vocabularies”, e.g., it has been shown [ 44 ] that these approaches are highly susceptible to the effects of user-bias. In contrast, our approach, where terms are drawn from a community-approved, expertly-composed text, yields a true controlled vocabulary.…”