Vocabulary Patterns in Free-for-all Collaborative Indexing Systems
W. Maass, T. Kowatsch, and T. Münster. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Emergent Semantics and Ontology Evolution (ESOE2007) at ISWC/ASWC2007, Busan, South Korea, (November 2007)
Abstract
In collaborative indexing systems users generate a big amount of metadata by labelling web-based content. These labels are known as tags and form a shared vocabulary. In order to understand the characteristics of that vocabulary, we study structural patterns of these tags by implying the theory of self-organizing systems. Therefore, we utilize the graph theoretic notion to model the network of tags and their valued connections, which represent frequency rates of co-occurring tags. Empirical data is provided by the free-for-all collaborative indexing systems Delicious, Connotea and CiteULike. First, we measure the frequency distribution of co-occurring tags. Secondly, we correlate these tags towards their rank over time. Results indicate a strong relationship among a few tags as well as a notable persistence of these tags over time. Therefore, we make the educated guess that the observed collaborative indexing systems are self-organizing systems towards a shared vocabulary building. Implications on the results are the presence of semantic domains based on high frequency rates of co-occurring tags, which reflect topics of interest among the user community. When observing those semantic domains over time, that information can be used to provide a historical or trend-setting development of the community's interests, thus enhancing collaborative indexing systems in general as well as providing a new tool to develop community-based products and services at the same time.
%0 Conference Paper
%1 Maass/2007/Vocabulary
%A Maass, Wolfgang
%A Kowatsch, Tobias
%A Münster, Timo
%B Proceedings of the International Workshop on Emergent Semantics and Ontology Evolution (ESOE2007) at ISWC/ASWC2007, Busan, South Korea
%D 2007
%E Haase, Peter
%E Hotho, Andreas
%E Chen, Luke
%E Ong, Ernie
%E Mauroux, Philippe Cudre
%K 2007 collaborative free-for-all indexing iswc pattern system vocabulary workshop_esoe
%T Vocabulary Patterns in Free-for-all Collaborative Indexing Systems
%X In collaborative indexing systems users generate a big amount of metadata by labelling web-based content. These labels are known as tags and form a shared vocabulary. In order to understand the characteristics of that vocabulary, we study structural patterns of these tags by implying the theory of self-organizing systems. Therefore, we utilize the graph theoretic notion to model the network of tags and their valued connections, which represent frequency rates of co-occurring tags. Empirical data is provided by the free-for-all collaborative indexing systems Delicious, Connotea and CiteULike. First, we measure the frequency distribution of co-occurring tags. Secondly, we correlate these tags towards their rank over time. Results indicate a strong relationship among a few tags as well as a notable persistence of these tags over time. Therefore, we make the educated guess that the observed collaborative indexing systems are self-organizing systems towards a shared vocabulary building. Implications on the results are the presence of semantic domains based on high frequency rates of co-occurring tags, which reflect topics of interest among the user community. When observing those semantic domains over time, that information can be used to provide a historical or trend-setting development of the community's interests, thus enhancing collaborative indexing systems in general as well as providing a new tool to develop community-based products and services at the same time.
@inproceedings{Maass/2007/Vocabulary,
abstract = {In collaborative indexing systems users generate a big amount of metadata by labelling web-based content. These labels are known as tags and form a shared vocabulary. In order to understand the characteristics of that vocabulary, we study structural patterns of these tags by implying the theory of self-organizing systems. Therefore, we utilize the graph theoretic notion to model the network of tags and their valued connections, which represent frequency rates of co-occurring tags. Empirical data is provided by the free-for-all collaborative indexing systems Delicious, Connotea and CiteULike. First, we measure the frequency distribution of co-occurring tags. Secondly, we correlate these tags towards their rank over time. Results indicate a strong relationship among a few tags as well as a notable persistence of these tags over time. Therefore, we make the educated guess that the observed collaborative indexing systems are self-organizing systems towards a shared vocabulary building. Implications on the results are the presence of semantic domains based on high frequency rates of co-occurring tags, which reflect topics of interest among the user community. When observing those semantic domains over time, that information can be used to provide a historical or trend-setting development of the community's interests, thus enhancing collaborative indexing systems in general as well as providing a new tool to develop community-based products and services at the same time.},
added-at = {2007-11-07T19:17:05.000+0100},
author = {Maass, Wolfgang and Kowatsch, Tobias and Münster, Timo},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2ebe2a6c94b0d0d0a5dd4a59dc98e0f4f/iswc2007},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Workshop on Emergent Semantics and Ontology Evolution (ESOE2007) at ISWC/ASWC2007, Busan, South Korea},
crossref = {http://data.semanticweb.org/workshop/esoe/2007/proceedings},
editor = {Haase, Peter and Hotho, Andreas and Chen, Luke and Ong, Ernie and Mauroux, Philippe Cudre},
interhash = {51e4bd4f2babd95c0d28664b7b492878},
intrahash = {ebe2a6c94b0d0d0a5dd4a59dc98e0f4f},
keywords = {2007 collaborative free-for-all indexing iswc pattern system vocabulary workshop_esoe},
month = {November},
timestamp = {2007-11-07T19:20:52.000+0100},
title = {Vocabulary Patterns in Free-for-all Collaborative Indexing Systems},
year = 2007
}