Virtual Communities as Contributors for Digital Objects Metadata Generation

Abstract

Description of online digital content is currently extremely necessary to facilitate a diverse amount of resource sharing over the internet. Many times, content is shared and reused within a virtual community. Virtual communities tend to have their own specific needs of resources, and tend to use a specific vocabulary to describe content. Members of virtual communities also tend to have specific motivations for participating and sharing information and knowledge with other members. In this chapter, the authors discuss the benefits of community members generating content description by analyzing the current literature on the matter. Then, the authors present two studies they have held where they assess the metadata generated by users of an IPTV system and by members of two different virtual communities.