Influences of social tags choices on academic papers over time : a user centric approach.

• Main Author: Khasfariyati Razikin.
• Other Authors: Goh Hoe Lian, Dion
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Library and information science::Libraries::Information organization
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46311
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This dissertation explores the influences of social tags on academic documents over time from three factors, namely, document, social and personal factors. This study uniquely positions itself from other similar studies by investigating from the users’ perspective. To do so, a naturalistic approach that adopts both quantitative and qualitative methods is used. The subjects in this study were required to search and tag academic papers in two phases. In each phase, they were instructed to fill in diaries with the aim to elicit the influences of their tag choices and their motivations for doing so quantitatively. They were also interviewed in order gain more insights of their tag choices and tagging behavior. The outcome from both diaries and interviews were triangulated, where themes for each individual factor emerged. Themes that emerged for document factor are documents’ usage and the content. For social factor, the themes are strong relationship ties, weak relationship ties and opinion expression. Finally, the themes for personal factors are familiarity with the document topic and the users experience with tagging. The results showed that the tags assigned to the papers were influenced from all three factors. However, influences from the documents and personal factors tend to play a more dominant role in the tag choices than social factors. Additionally, there are significant differences in the influence of the individual themes over time. The findings in this study have brought forward the factors that influence the users’ choice of tags for academic papers over time that have both research and practical implications.