Effective Tagging Practices for Online Learning Environments: Dictionary or Freestyle
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This document summarizes a study that compared the effectiveness of three different approaches to tagging online resources: freestyle tagging, dictionary-based tagging, and a combined freestyle and dictionary approach. 78 undergraduate students tagged resources using Diigo over five weeks under one of the three conditions. The findings showed that dictionary-only tagging reduced redundancy and synonyms the most, while freestyle tagging resulted in the most single-use and irrelevant tags. The combined approach was most effective by allowing students to both use predefined tags and add their own. The implications are that students need guidance to learn effective tagging and that dictionaries can help structure the activity while allowing flexibility.
Effective Tagging Practices for Online Learning Environments: Dictionary or Freestyle
- 1. Effec%ve Tagging Prac%ces for Online Learning Environments: Dic%onary or Freestyle Vanessa P. Dennen Michelle L. Cates Lauren M. Bagdy Florida State University Presenta%on at OLC 2017 • Orlando, FL
- 2. A Quick Tagging Primer • Tags are just labels • Most are nouns that reflect content • Other types of tags – Type of material – Author – Personal judgment – Self-‐reference – Task organiza%on
- 3. Background Freestyle Tags – Learners set own tags – System develops over %me • Increasing in sophis%ca%on, levels of dis%nc%on – Strengths: • User ownership – Weaknesses: • Synonymy • Misspellings • Personal naming conven%ons
- 4. Background Tag Dic%onaries – Predetermined collec%ons of keywords – Strengths: • Standardiza%on • Reduced redundancy – Weaknesses: • Overly constrained • Inflexible
- 5. VALUE OF TAGGING Tagging is only effec8ve when end users find the informa8on they seek
- 6. Purpose of Study • Compare and contrast three approaches to tagging: – Freestyle – Dic%onary-‐based – Dic%onary + freestyle
- 7. Method: Par%cipants Par%cipants • 78 undergraduate students enrolled in 6 sec%ons of a class • All par%cipants signed informed consent forms • Largely preservice teachers Class • Introduc%on to Educa%onal Technology
- 8. Method: Context • During a 5-‐week unit, students used Diigo • Class sessions were assigned to one of three treatments – Freestyle (2 sec%ons) – Dic%onary (2 sec%ons) – Freestyle + dic%onary (2 sec%ons) • The dic%onary was developed by researchers – Based on readings/curriculum – New dic%onary for each week’s lesson (5 lessons in unit)
- 9. Method: Data Collec%on / Analysis Data Collec%on • Course archives (Diigo) • End of term survey Data Analysis • Tagging frequencies • Similari%es/differences across groups • Survey: Frequencies, themes (open items)
- 10. Week 1 2 3 4 5 Course Concept Academic Software Web 2.0 Productivity Tools Assistive Technology Professional Development Bookmark x x x x x Tag x x x x x Describe x x x x x Highlight x x x x Page Comment x x x x Peer Comment x x x x Topics x x x
- 14. Findings: Student Impression of Tags Agree Neutral Disagree Tags are a meaningful way to share links 86.08% 6.33% 7.60% Tags are useful to search resources shared by classmates 69.63% 11.39% 18.98%
- 15. Findings: Dic%onary-‐Only Use • Used fewest tags • Had lowest propor%on of single-‐use tags • Had tags with highest rate of use
- 16. Findings: Freestyle Tagging • Tags did not always relate to topic (e.g., fun) • Highest use tags were superfluous (e.g., educa%on) • Synonymous tags, which also were most applied • Highest rate of single-‐use tags
- 17. Findings: Freestyle + Dic%onary • Best of the other treatments – Dic%onary tags headed off synonymy – Dic%onary served as tag model – Students could add meaningful tags as needed
- 18. Summary of Treatments Synonymy (least to most) 1. Dic%onary 2. Freestyle + Dic%onary 3. Freestyle Single use tags (least to most) 1. Dic%onary 2. Freestyle + Dic%onary 3. Freestyle
- 19. Summary of Student Impressions • Students had ligle prior experience with tagging • Students found tagging useful in general • Unaware of other tagging approaches, students were not bothered by inefficient peer tagging or tagging constraints – They did no%ce both when they happened
- 20. Implica%ons for Instruc%on • Students need help learning how to classify and tag content – Freestyle tagging is not intui%ve • Tagging dic%onaries can help frame tagging ac%vi%es, cue learners to important content • Consider student orienta%on toward tagging (for self, for others)
- 21. Developing a Tag Dic%onary (Our Process) • Review course readings and highlight key terms • Generate a list of key terms – Content (e.g., blogging) – Type of material (e.g., journal ar%cle) – Audience/applica%on (e.g., elementary) • Eliminate duplicates and synonyms • Group similar terms / create parallel term systems • Assess dic%onary size • Test the dic%onary
- 22. Tes%ng a Tag Dic%onary (Process) • Iden%fy texts students will be asked to tag – If students are searching for items to share and tag, do a sample search • Prac%ce using the tag dic%onary on some of the items – Do the tags fit? If not, revise – Do the tags represent the range of content? If not, add tags • Give the tag list to another person. Ask them to describe each tag for you – Do the descrip%ons match your intent? If not, revise • Have another person tag sample content – Do they apply the tags as you would? If not, discuss with them and determine how to revise the tags • Ask a few people to tag the sample content freestyle – Consider u%lity of newly generated tags
- 23. Ques%ons? • Thank you for agending. • Slides at: slideshare.net/vanessadennen • Contact: – Vanessa Dennen – vdennen@fsu.edu -‐ @vdennen – Michelle Cates – MLC14J@my.fsu.edu -‐ @leaderlibrarian – Lauren Bagdy – LB14X@my.fsu.edu -‐ @laurenbagdy