Adam SeldowHarvard Graduate School of Education
June 7, 2007
3rd Annual Innovations in e-Learning Symposium
Social Tagging in Education and the Workplace
Agenda1. What are Social Networks (online context)?2. Social Networking vs. Social Tagging
• Sociosemantic Networking Social Bookmarking
3. Social Bookmarking Communities for the:• General population• Special Interests• Enterprise
4. Edtags.org : Sociosemantic Networking for the Education Community
5. Innovations in Social Bookmarking6. Social Bookmarking Legislation?
Social Networks• Collections of organisms (usually people) and
their interrelationships– Real world examples: friends, coworkers– Virtual world examples: Whyville, Second Life– Blended (online + F2F): Facebook.com,MySpace,
Retrieved 6/5/07 from http://friendthing.trigse.cx/visualizer.phpRetrieved 6/5/07 from http://flickr.com/photos/ialja/449464634/in/set-72157594557491654/
Social Tagging• Collaborative labeling of an object• Contribute additional metadata• Object resides in the system (e.g., Flickr (1)
photo sharing; Steve.museum (2) artwork)
Sociosemantic Networking• Uses the language of a community
to form connections– People with Content (P2C)– People with Other People (P2P)
• Colloquial communication: Tag as we speak
– “Green Monster” (Fenway Park)– “rack” (a bunk at West Point)
A few Sociosemantic Platforms
Del.icio.us
Scuttle.org
Social Bookmarking• Bookmark = Anything with a URL (web
address)
• Saving, Tagging, and sharing links to websites, documents, images, and other files which, for the most part, reside outside of the system.
• Your browser’s “favorites” + the favorites of others on one website
• A grassroots movement to index the World Wide Web
Social Bookmarking:General Population
• Save and share any bookmarks– Tags create structure– Tend to be “techie-focused”
Del.icio.us
Scuttle.org
Social Bookmarking:General Population
• Ideas– Content more prominent than people– Widely used Application Program
Interfaces (APIs) = more interesting tools (e.g., del.icio.us / flickr badges)
– Larger user base ≈ large data set– Targets for spam and self-promoting
ads
Social Bookmarking:Special Interests
• Save and share bookmarks pertaining to a particular field or topic
– Site missions provide first structural layer
– Generally fewer bookmarks– Attract people with specific needs and
interests
Social Bookmarking:Special Interests
• Ideas– Highly targeted repository of
information– People are as important as the content– Tag data reflects/creates language of
the field– Tools tend to cater to the needs of the
particular community (RefWorks, etc.)– Often compatible with larger social
bookmarking sites (via APIs)
Social Bookmarking:Enterprise
• Save and share bookmarks in the workplace
– Motivation for participation is different than public bookmarking sites
– Materials often related to specific projects
Lotus Connections (IBM): Dogear
Social Bookmarking:Enterprise
• Ideas– Various user-level permission settings
(who can see what)– Tags may be tailored to particular
projects– Bookmarks can outlive you in the
company
Social Bookmarking US Research
• Edtags.org (Doctoral research project, Harvard Graduate School of Education)
• PennTags (University of Pennsylvania Library)
• Steve.museum (Museum collaborative research project)
• PocketKnowledge (Columbia Teachers College Library)
Edtags.org Sociosemantic Networking for Educators
• Website for anyone interested in the field of education to save, share, and discover resources. (Video)
• Detailed user profiles – easier to make a credibility judgment call
Edtags.org Sociosemantic Networking for Educators
• Vote, discuss, email bookmarks• Tailored RSS feeds (recent,
username, tags, combinations)• Coming soon…User/Tag
recommendations, Groups, more…• Edtags Labs include tag / user
cluster visualizations + numerical data
Innovations in Social Bookmarking
• Web clipping (Clipmarks.com)• Tag bundling (del.icio.us)• Related content and user algorithms
(Edtags, Connotea, etc.)• Social bookmarking website
metacrawlers• Concept entering library online card
catalogs (PennTags)• Tag and tag cluster visualizations
(Edtags Labs)
Public Sector Concerns• Deleting Online Predator Act (DOPA)
– (In Senate) H.R. 5319: …requires recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms.”1
• Child Information Protection Act (CIPA)– “…addresses concerns about access to
offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers.”2
1Retrieved 5.29.07 from http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-53192Retrieved 6.07.07 from http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html
Summary
• Social bookmarking exemplifies the social direction of user site contributions integral to Web 2.0
ContactAdam Seldow
Edtags.org Projecthttp://isites.harvard.edu/edtags
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Conference resources:http://www.edtags.org/tags.php/gmu_2007