Scribd
Upload
113 views2 pages

Web 2.0 Handout Tagging

Tags can be used to organize, structure, find, and share online content. Tags are keywords or descriptors assigned to content like documents, photos, videos, and blogs. Tagging content makes it easier to categorize information and allows others to find content by those tags. When creating tags for content, it is best to use multiple relevant tags describing topics, locations, dates, and organizations to aid in searching and organizing information. Consistent and unique tagging of content helps different groups and events effectively share information online.

Uploaded by

YaronBaba
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
113 views2 pages

Web 2.0 Handout Tagging

Tags can be used to organize, structure, find, and share online content. Tags are keywords or descriptors assigned to content like documents, photos, videos, and blogs. Tagging content makes it easier to categorize information and allows others to find content by those tags. When creating tags for content, it is best to use multiple relevant tags describing topics, locations, dates, and organizations to aid in searching and organizing information. Consistent and unique tagging of content helps different groups and events effectively share information online.

Uploaded by

YaronBaba
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Tips for trainers

Tagging
Tips on using tags and tagging for development

Why use tags for development?


Tags can be used to organise, structure, find and share development content open up more possibilities for sharing and collaboration, making it easier to share interesting online content on particular themes with others improve information-sharing, especially with the combined use of tags, social bookmarks and RSS feeds create collections of popular development tags used by others (e.g. a development folksonomy).

TIPS FOR TRAINERS

What is tagging?
Tagging is the process of assigning online content with keywords or tags. A tag is a form of metadata.1 It is a one-word descriptor or keyword that a user can assign to online content, such as documents, blogs, photos and videos. Tags describe and categorise content and allow it to be found again by searching the Internet using that keyword. Tags are also usually hyperlinks, which if clicked, will show all content tagged with that keyword. Tagging makes it easier to organise and describe information in a manner that is personally meaningful. Tags are chosen according to the personal preferences of the user. While some websites provide existing categories of tags for users to choose from, users can also create their own tags or keywords. A tag cloud or word cloud is a visual list of tags that have been used on a website or blog etc. The tags that are used most often are shown in larger font sizes and/or different colours. Most blogs and social networking websites allow users the option to tag their content e.g. Flickr, Ning and Technorati.
1

Tagging is particularly important for media such as photo, video and audio, which unlike text does not have word-searchable content other than a title or short description. The practice of social tagging to share resources with others is quickly becoming a staple of Web 2.0. A collection of online user-generated tags is often referred to as a folksonomy.2 Social bookmarking websites like Delicious allow users to add their own tags to Internet bookmarks to help organise and remember them.3 This is also especially useful for content which cannot be tagged where it has been uploaded. Websites that support tagging will often allow an RSS feed to be generated for a particular tag or set of tags. This RSS feed enables tagged content to be syndicated to other websites or read via a feed reader.4 Geotags are tags that give a geographic location for a piece of content (e.g. a photograph) often using longitude and latitude information. Flickr allows photographs to be geotagged and geotagging is becoming increasingly important especially for use in mash-ups.5
2 See glossary on p.121 for a definition of folksonomies. 3 Internet bookmarks (or Favourites) are stored web

Some tips on using tags


Where possible, always tag information or data that you upload online e.g. online presentations, blog posts, photos, videos and reports. See what tags other people in your field are using for similar content. For example, social bookmarking websites list popular tags chosen by other Internet users to describe online resources they have bookmarked. Assign multiple tags to a piece of content. Include the most important keywords: Is it a report? What year was it published? Is it about an event? Which organisations? Which countries? Which topics? Creating unique tags is an important way of differentiating content. This can be particularly useful for events/conferences where organisers encourage participants to use a pre-specified unique tag to identify material from that event (such as reports, write-ups, photos or blog posts).6

Metadata is a form of data assigned to any piece of data, which allows it to be retrieved. See glossary, p.122 (this issue).

page locations (URLs) that can be retrieved. See Social bookmarking, p.119 (this issue). 4 See also RSS feeds, p.115, this issue. 5 A mash-up is combining data from two or more external online sources. See glossary, p.122 (this issue).

For example, during the Web2forDev conference, participants were encouraged to use the tag Web2forDev to describe any uploaded content related to the event, e.g. blog posts and photos.

117

Tips for trainers

The cover image of this special issue represents some of the more widely-used keywords or tags associated with Web2forDev.

TIPS FOR TRAINERS

Keep in mind
Some keywords can have several meanings. For example, orange can refer to the colour, the fruit or the telecommunication brand. Be consistent in the way you use tags to identify content related to a particular topic. This enables yourself and others to find information more easily. If you want a community of users to use tags e.g. members of an online social network, provide easy-to-follow guidelines on how to create and use tags as well as a list of popular or specific tags that are used in the specific area of interest. If you are creating tags for a specific topic, event, website or online group to use, decide on your unique tags in advance and make sure people know what they are. This will prevent the need to retag numerous documents later on and ensure that related content can be found more easily by others.

http://technorati.com (for blogs) www.youtube.com (for videos) www.slideshare.net (for presentations) To see an example of how content tagged with a particular keyword (web2fordev) is displayed in Delicious, see e.g.: http://delicious.com/tag/web2for dev To see how content tagged with web2fordev is syndicated on a

website see e.g.: www.web2fordev.net https://twitter.com/web2fordev Create graphical tag (or word) clouds for any text, feed or Delicious users tags: www.wordle.net

Where to get started Some common examples of websites using tags


www.flickr.com (for photos) www.delicious.com (for bookmarks)

Video: Introductions to tagging and folksonomies


http://k12onlineconference.org/? p=273

118

You might also like