I can't help but let my imagination run a bit wild over all the possibilities here...
No one seems be be arguing that Folksonomies are bad, or that traditional subject headings and controlled vocab are bad. Both have some great qualities to offer. Both have drawbacks. I think that the challenge might not be to argue for one or the other, but to find a way to combine the best of both worlds.
I like the idea of a "collabulary" that is presented on the Wikipedia page. They define it as:
"a compromise between the two: a team of classification experts collaborates with content consumers to create rich, but more systematic content tagging systems."
Granted, this sounds a bit over-simplified, but I like the concept. I'm not 100% sure how it would work in practice though. Ou suggests a distributed classification system where, if I get it, cataloguers do the original descriptive cataloguing and leave the subject analysis to the users. This seems great to me! I think she does well to highlight what may be a major stumbling block: will users participate? If not...it doesn't work at all.
Especially in a university setting, I like the idea of user-generated subject information. Imagine begin able to see what resources within a catalogue other students at Western have tagged as "reference interview" or as "reader's advisory" or as releveant to both "LIS 775" and "LIS 503"? It definitely has the potential to aid in comprehensive literature searches if previous students, studying the same topics, have already identified some good, relevant resources. (as Marco points out in a comment to my previous post, it is unlikely that someone would be lucky enough to stumble upon such a tag, but in a smaller, more specific community, it might be more likely? Still wishful thinking?)
Hmmm....could this even lead to cheating? Tagging the correct response to a reference search? Would it be cheating if I found a tag "LIS 757 - folksonomy essay" (I know, wishful thinking) and used all of those resources for my essay? Do I cite that tag since it did much of the research for me? Now I'm just rambling, but hmm....I am sure that, as user tagging develops, we will see a development in additional student code of ethics to match.
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3 comments:
Hi Joanne,
You know, I never thought about folksonomies leading to cheating, but I think it could - another disadvantage for folksonomies. Plagiarism is common on the internet, and by assigning tags that other people serendipitously could find makes it likely. Imagine finding articles for our 503 lit search this way! Imagine Noon's reaction...
Hi Joanne - great post. I agree, the idea of a collabulary is lovely, but its success definitely hinges on user participation. If the user sees enough "selfish" use in the content (as VanderWal suggests), then they would participate!
Ha ha! The lit search assignment would never be the same!
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