User-Generated Content

Josh PetrusaMeredith Farkas

Web 1.0: Democratized access to information

Web 2.0: Democratized participation

What is user-generated content?

Tags

Ratings

Custom collections

Online community

contributions

Wiki contributions

Comments

Blog posts

Audio and

videoPhotos

Why User-Generated Content?•We don’t know everything

• Insufficient metadata

•Findability and refindability

•Stories people tell about items are of value

• Interaction with materials creates a more personal connection

•People are already doing it!

•35% of online adults, 57% of teens (Pew, 2006)

Tags•User-created descriptive metadata

•Folksonomy - system of organizing through tagging.

dogdogbrooklyn ice cream factorybrooklyn ice cream factoryIce CreamIce CreamNYNY

corgicorgisummersummergirlgirl

ice creamice creamLaSalleLaSallepuppypuppybad ownerbad owner

How will people search for this?How will people search for this?

Many ways to describe...

Where the tags are

Where the tags are

Where the tags are

Why tags?•Lets people make sense of content

using their own vocabulary (cinema? movies? film? motion picture?)

•Helps people to re-find their own content

•Helps people to discover new content

•Good solution for situations where content can’t be formally cataloged.

Why not?•No control

• People can use plural or singular words, use dashes or underscores to connect words, etc.

•Multiple terms to describe a single concept

•No disambiguation

• People tag selfishly (to_read, chapter1, EN101)

• People tag incorrectly

• “Tagging bulldozes the cost of classification and piles it on the price of discovery.” (Ian Davis of Talis)

Improving tagging

Improving tagging

Examples of user-generated content

The libraryOur users

Issues•Moderation

•Technology issues (how to make this happen?)

•Differentiating between user content and institutional content

•Making it easy and appealing to contribute

•Letting people do what they want with their data

•If you build it, will they come? Evaluate your population

Thanks!

mfarkas@norwich.edujpetrusa@norwich.edu

Links and slides at meredithfarkas.wetpaint.co

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