Margaret E. I. Kipp

Patterns and Inconsistencies in Collaborative Tagging Systems: An Examination of Tagging Practices

This paper analyzes the tagging patterns exhibited by users of del.icio.us, to assess how collaborative tagging supports and enhances traditional ways of classifying and indexing documents. Using frequency data and co-word analysis matrices analyzed by multi-dimensional scaling, the authors discovered that tagging practices to some extent work in ways that are continuous with conventional indexing. Small numbers of tags tend to emerge by unspoken consensus, and inconsistencies follow several predictable patterns that can easily be anticipated. However, the tags also indicated intriguing practices relating to time and task which suggest the presence of an extra dimension in classification and organization, a dimension which conventional systems are unable to facilitate. (The paper is available from http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00008315/)

Why are hyperlinks to business Websites created? A content analysis

SummaryMotivations for the creation of hyperlinks to business sites were analyzed through a content analysis approach. Links to 280 North American IT companies (71 Canadian companies and 209 U.S. companies) were searched through Yahoo!. Then a random sample of 808 links was taken from the links retrieved. The content as well as the context of each link was manually examined to determine why the link was created. The country location and the type of the site where the link came from were also identified. The study found that most links were created for business purposes confirming findings from early quantitative studies that links contain useful business information. Links to competitors were extremely rare but competitors were often co-linked, suggesting that co-link analysis is the direction to pursue for information on competitive intelligence.

Why are Websites co-linked? The case of Canadian universities

This study examined why Websites were co-linked using Canadian university Websites as the test set. Pages that co-linked to these university Websites were located using Yahool. A random sample of 859 co-linking pages (the page that initiated the co-link) was retrieved and the contents of the page, as well as the context of the link, were manually examined to record the following variables: language, country, type of Website, and the reasons for co-linking. The study found that in over 94% of cases, the two co-linked universities were related academically; many of these cases (38%) showed a relationship specifically in teaching or research. This confirms results, from previous quantitative studies, that Web co-links can be a measure of the similarity or relatedness of sites being co-linked and that Web co-link analysis can thus be used to study relationships among linked Websites.

Tagging of Biomedical Articles on CiteULike: A Comparison of User, Author and Professional Indexing

This paper examines the context of online indexing from the viewpoint of three different groups: users, authors, and professional indexers. User tags, author keywords and descriptors were collected from academic journal articles, which were both indexed in Pubmed and tagged on CiteULike, and analysed. Descriptive statistics, informetric measures, and thesaural term comparison shows that there are important differences in the use of keywords between the three groups in addition to similarities which can be used to enhance support for search and browse. While tags and author keywords were found that matched descriptors exactly, other terms which did not match but provided important expansion to the indexing lexicon were found. These additional terms could be used to enhance support for searching and browsing in article databases as well as to provide invaluable data for entry vocabulary and emergent terminology for regular updates to indexing systems. Additionally, the study suggests that tags support organisation by association to task, projects and subject while making important connections to traditional systems which classify into subject categories.

Are co‐linked business web sites really related? A link classification study

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to examine the reasons for the creation of co‐links between pairs of business web sites. Specifically, to determine whether co‐linked business web sites are really related.Design/methodology/approach – Co‐links to 32 telecommunications companies were retrieved using Yahoo! and a random sample of 495 co‐linking pages (the page that initiated the co‐link) were selected for a content analysis. The context of the co‐link and the content of the co‐linking page were manually examined to record the following data: type of web site and the reason for the creation of the co‐link.Findings – The study found that 61.4 per cent of co‐links were created to connected pairs of highly related businesses (related companies, related products, and related services). Only 14.7 per cent of co‐links were created for non‐business reasons. The remaining 23.8 per cent of co‐linked sites showed a loose or marginal business relationship. The study also found that co‐links targeting home pages...

Understanding the retrieval effectiveness of collaborative tags and author keywords in different retrieval environments: An experimental study on medical collections

This study investigates the retrieval effectiveness of collaborative tags and author keywords in different environments through controlled experiments. Three test collections were built. The first collection tests the impact of tags on retrieval performance when only the title and abstract are available (the abstract environment). The second tests the impact of tags when the full text is available (the full‐text environment). The third compares the retrieval effectiveness of tags and author keywords in the abstract environment. In addition, both single‐word queries and phrase queries are tested to understand the impact of different query types. Our findings suggest that including tags and author keywords in indexes can enhance recall but may improve or worsen average precision depending on retrieval environments and query types. Indexing tags and author keywords for searching using phrase queries in the abstract environment showed improved average precision, whereas indexing tags for searching using single‐word queries in the full‐text environment led to a significant drop in average precision. The comparison between tags and author keywords in the abstract environment indicates that they have comparable impact on average precision, but author keywords are more advantageous in enhancing recall. The findings from this study provide useful implications for designing retrieval systems that incorporate tags and author keywords.

Tagging for health information organisation and retrieval

This paper examines the tagging practices evident on CiteULike, a research oriented social bookmarking site for journal articles. Articles selected for this study were health information and medicine related. Tagging practices were examined using standard informetric measures for analysis of bibliographic information and analysis of term use. Additionally, tags were compared to descriptors assigned to the same article.

Application of structural equation modelling in exploring tag patterns: a pilot study

This pilot study examines the semantic structure of tag space in Library and Information Science (LIS) using confirmatory factor analysis of social tags from Delicious.com. This study is one of the few studies to employ structural equation modelling (SEM) in investigating dimensions of Web spaces based on social tagging data. This study examines the post data collected from 34 LIS related websites bookmarked on delicious.com. Collected data was analysed using three statistical techniques: correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), to confirm the structure of the social tagging space. Preliminary analysis shows that the semantic structure of the tagging data shows similar connections to those present in the real world. These methodologies can be used to identify the strength of connections between related tagged websites.

An experimental study on the retrieval effectiveness of collaborative tags

This study investigated the retrieval effectiveness of tagging through experimental tests. We developed a test collection, a list of topics and corresponding relevance judgments using data collected from Pubmed and CiteULike. Two retrieval test runs were carried out, one without tags (baseline) and one with tags (tag run). General improvements in retrieval performance were observed from the tag run in terms of mean average precision and the difference is statistically significant though small. As revealed by the 11-point precision recall chart, the tag run retrieved more relevant documents at the top of the result list overall. The initial findings suggest that the use of tags in information retrieval has promise, especially in ranking the top retrieved documents.

Emerging Trends in Knowledge Organization and Information Organization Course Curriculum

In this panel we will discuss the importance of knowledge organization and information organization in library and information science curricula and the emerging trends both inside and outside of library and information science which will affect the curriculum in coming years.