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Folksonomies

ANZSI Conference 2011Matt MooreInnotecture

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Agenda Folksonomies Linked Data Australian Taxonomy Survey

+Folksonomies

“Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one's own retrieval. The tagging is done in a social environment (usually shared and open to others). Folksonomy is created from the act of tagging by the person consuming the information.

The value in this external tagging is derived from people using their own vocabulary and adding explicit meaning, which may come from inferred understanding of the information/object. People are not so much categorizing, as providing a means to connect items (placing hooks) to provide their meaning in their own understanding.

In a few conversations around folksonomy and tagging in 2004 I stated, "folksonomy is tagging that works". This is still a strong belief the three tenets of a folksonomy: 1) tag; 2) object being tagged; and 3) identity, are core to disambiguation of tag terms and provide for a rich understanding of the object being tagged.”

By: Thomas Vander Wal

On: 2 February 2007

http://vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html

+Folksonomies

“Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of information and objects (anything with a URL) for one's own retrieval. The tagging is done in a social environment (usually shared and open to others). Folksonomy is created from the act of tagging by the person consuming the information.

The value in this external tagging is derived from people using their own vocabulary and adding explicit meaning, which may come from inferred understanding of the information/object. People are not so much categorizing, as providing a means to connect items (placing hooks) to provide their meaning in their own understanding.

In a few conversations around folksonomy and tagging in 2004 I stated, "folksonomy is tagging that works". This is still a strong belief the three tenets of a folksonomy: 1) tag; 2) object being tagged; and 3) identity, are core to disambiguation of tag terms and provide for a rich understanding of the object being tagged.”

By: Thomas Vander Wal

On: 2 February 2007

http://vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html

Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/

+Survey Background

Who?

LibrariansRecords ManagersKnowledge ManagersInformation Architects

Where? Government = 38%

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USED FOR:

Browsing

Search

Retrieval

Sense Making

60% Classifies

19% Controlled

Vocab

21%Hierarchy

WHERE'S THE BUSINESS BABY?

What is a taxonomy?

+Taxonomy Use

28%

14%

24%

34%

Does your organisation use taxonomies in the management of it’s information?

Yes, developed by both selves & other orgs

Yes, developed by ourselves

Yes, developed by other orgs

No

+Software Use

Does your organisation use any specialist software?

Yes 31%

No 69%

+Taxonomy Maturity

Don't KnowDo Not UseSophisticatedTypicalRhudimentary

6%

21%

8%

45%

21%

+Improving Taxonomies

Yes - we are doing so

Yes, but we do not have the knowledge

Yes, but we do not have resources

No, we are happy

32%

28%

49%

18%

“Yes, but the management don’t understand taxonomy and can’t communicate it well, so it’s enforced and used badly by most”

“No, there is no business driver to do so”

“Yes, but there is little understanding of what

is at middle management level

and therefore no commitment”

+Taxonomy Skills

Planning a Taxonomy Project

Creating a business case

Using facet analysis

Managing folksonomies

Developing an ontology

Using SharePoint to manage taxonomy

Using specialist Taxonomy sofftware

Selecting & applying an existing Taxonomy

Using tests such as card sorting for taxonomy evaluation

Selecting and applying an existing ontology

83%

76%

64%

44%

34%

32%

32%

27%

16%

7%

+Conclusions

1. Don't believe (all) the hype…

2. …but do pay attention.

3. Talk about user / business outcomes not information management ones