Hi Liddy,

> For those who were not at the DC session, we have had a few 
> private conversations about how tagging relates to DC 
> metadata and whether or not it should be called 'social' 
> tagging. This is my first contribution - please see my ideas 
> at http://dublincore.org/ taggingwiki/SocialTagging
> 
> (I have a secret hope that the community will decide that 
> 'social' is not necessary and we'll get a shorter email 
> header! - yes, yes, I can change it anyway, I know, but I'd 
> like to hear what others think :-) )

Thanks for doing the legwork to get this group launched. I missed the
meeting on tagging at DC-2006 because I was "double booked" - a pity as
it sounded as if it was one of the more lively and stimulating sessions!
So I may be going over ground that you have already covered, but FWIW, a
couple of quick thoughts on the "social" adjective.

In your piece on the wiki, you draw a distinction between the creation
of metadata by "trained cataloguers" (using the example of MARC records)
and the creation of metadata by "ordinary people" (using the example of
DC).

I recognise that there is a distinction there - but I'm not sure that is
the aspect which people are seeking to capture through the inclusion of
the "social" adjective.

I think the "social" in the "social tagging" term is intended to
emphasise the communal or collaborative aspects  of the operation
(and/or the context/system within which the operation is performed), not
the level of training or expertise of the person performing that
operation.

In theory, I could engage in "tagging" within a system in which I was
the only user - I could run a del.icio.us clone on my laptop, accessible
only to me on my login on that machine, and I could post entries and
"tag" resources within that system. In this scenario, I'm certainly
performing the "tagging" operation. But there is no communal or
collaborative aspect to that operation. I'm not sharing my collection of
entries (including my tags) with anyone else, and I'm not looking at
entries (including tags) from the collections of other individuals:
no-one else is analysing or using my tags and modifying their tagging
behaviour based on that experience, and I'm not analysing or using
anyone else's tags, and modifying my tagging behaviour based on that
experience. This (it seems to me) is "tagging", and it may be very
useful to me as an individual for my personal information management and
retrieval, but it's not "social tagging". 

If I was doing this sort of thing in a system that was on our
organisational intranet and a few colleagues were also posting entries
to there own collections and applying their own tags to resources, and
we were browsing each other's collections and using each others' tags,
then a communal element is introduced. Even if there are only a handful
of contributors, there is now a "social" dimension to the operation -
and typically the software makes this explicit by e.g. offering
suggestions for tags based on the conventions used by other
contributors. This _is_ now a form of what I would call "social
tagging", albeit one which is perhaps more limited than is found in the
contexts where the term is typically used. The "community" in this case
is small and probably quite homogeneous in terms of
aims/experience/interests/language (and more broadly of culture etc).
And different contributors might "engage" with that "community" to a
greater or lesser degree - we might all choose to ignore each others'
tagging conventions! - but there is, potentially at least, a social
dimension to the tagging operation. 

And of course I could extend that scenario to an open, global system
(like del.icio.us etc) where the community of participants is large and
heterogeneous, with wide variations in aims, experiences, culture,
language etc

In my scenario I'm not making any assumptions about the "ordinariness"
(or otherwise! ;-) ) of the participants or their levels of expertise or
training. A community of "trained cataloguers" can engage in social
tagging and "ordinary people" can "tag" in ways which are not "social". 

I understood that this group was interested specifically in tagging
which takes place within that sort of communal/collaborative context
(e,g. in my second and third scenarios rather than my first) - in
tagging which is "social". And for that reason I think it is useful to
retain that adjective as part of the name.

Turning to DC metadata creation, I'd probably say that while it's true
that a good deal of DC metadata creation has been carried out by people
who are not trained cataloguers, I'm less sure that it has taken place
within this sort of communal/collaborative context, and in that sense
I'd probably say that DC metadata creation has typically not been a
"social" process, or at least not in the way or to the extent that
tagging in a system like del.icio.us is (or can be).

Cheers

Pete
---
Pete Johnston
Technical Researcher, Eduserv Foundation
Web: http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/
Email: [log in to unmask] 
Tel: +44 (0)1225 474323