Social tagging and communities of practice: Two case studies

Abstract

In investigating the use of social tagging for knowledge organization and sharing, this paper reports on two case studies. Each study examines how two disparate communities of practices utilize social tagging to disseminate information to other community members in the online environment. Through the use of these tags, community members may retrieve and view relevant Web sites and online videos. The first study looks at tagging within the Code4Lib community of practice. The second study examines the use of tagging on video sharing sites used by a community of French teenagers. Uses of social tagging to share information within these communities are analyzed and discussed, and recommendations for future study are provided.