6.3 Tagging – folksonomies 

Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items,  typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give  rise to a classification system based on those tags and how often they are applied or searched for,  in contrast to a taxonomic classification designed by the owners of the content and specified when 

it is published. This practice is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social  indexing, and social tagging.  

Folksonomy was originally "the result of personal free tagging of information [...] for one's own  retrieval",but online sharing and interaction expanded it into collaborative forms.  

Social tagging is the application of tags in an open online environment where the tags of other  users are available to others.  

Collaborative tagging (also known as group tagging) is tagging performed by a group of users.  This type of folksonomy is commonly used in cooperative and collaborative projects such as  research, content repositories, and social bookmarking. 

Folksonomies can be used for K-12 education, business, and higher education. More specifically,  folksonomies may be implemented for social bookmarking, teacher resource repositories, e learning systems, collaborative learning, collaborative research, professional development and  teaching. 

6.3.1 Examples 

∙ Flickr: shared photos 

∙ Instagram: online photo-sharing and social networking service 

∙ Many libraries' online catalogs 

∙ Pinterest: photosharing and publishing website 

∙ Twitter hashtags 

∙ The World Wide Web Consortium's Annotea project with user-generated tags in 2002. ∙ WordPress: blogging tool and Content Management System