Taxonomies and folksonomies

Presentation at ImageIn Terms for E-Learning-seminar

Outline

• purpose
• introduction to taxonomies
• introduction to folksonomies
• where will the two meet?

Purpose

my interpretation: using terms (eq concepts) and visualisation techniques (eq relationships) for creating novel ways of organising ideas.

my aim: introduce two ways of using terms for indexing/representing ideas

Taxonomies

The classification of objects into classes based on common characteristics.

Origin: Linnaeus' Systema Naturae

Taxonomies can differ in semantic strength, from "simple" hierarchical systems to thesauri to ontologies

Examples of taxonomies

Dewey Decimal System

Medical Subject Headings (MESH)

Ebay

Main characteristics of taxonomies

• taxonomies are created by experts
• taxonomies are created for experts
• taxonomies have a hierarchical core
• taxonomies have a controlled vocabulary
• taxonomies are topical
• taxonomies visualise relationships
• taxonomies are built top-down

Folksonomies

from "folk" + taxonomies...

According to Wikipedia "a folksonomy is a user generated taxonomy used to categorize and retrieve Web pages, photographs, Web links and other web content using open ended labels called tags. Typically, folksonomies are Internet-based, but their use may occur in other contexts as well."

User-generated taxonomy?

users come up with words (tags) that can be used to describe some aspect of a thing.

Examples of folksonomies

• Flickr (tagcloud)
• Del.icio.us (tagcloud)
• Librarything (tagcloud)

Main characteristics of folksonomies

• folksonomies are created by users
• the tags in folksonomies are created for individual use
• folksonomies' vocabulary are un-controlled
• folksonomies represents a myriad of facets
• folksonomies are visualised as tag clouds

Taxonomies and folksonomies

-how can we exploit the best of these approaches?

Pros of taxonomies

• controlled vocabularies hinder inconsistencies based on the synonym and homonym problems
• they have formalised ways of representing relationships

Pros of folksonomies

• users are in control
• with a critical mass of users and tags folksonomies provide new entry points ("polyrepresentation of content")
• focus on more facets than topicality

Conclusion

• our tool needs to support a certain level of consistency control
• it should implement solutions for the explication of types of relationships
• types of topics (facets) should be made explicit

Topic maps may provide the framework to solutions, but still much work to be done...

One attempt is Fuzzzy