Exploratory Analysis of the Main Characteristics of Tags and Tagging of Educational Resources in a Multi-lingual Context

Abstract

Although social, collaborative classification through tagging has been the focus of recent research, the effect of multi-linguality is often overlooked. This work presents an exploratory study of the production and use of tags in multiple languages in a context of European Learning Resources Exchange. We describe a tagging tool used by teachers from 6 countries and study the main characteristics of tags and how users tag when multiple languages are presented. We find early indication that tags and bookmarks could be used to facilitate the discovery of educational resources across country and language borders. “Hiding all but the right tags” becomes crucial for the success of a multi-lingual collaborative tagging system.