Social bookmarking
From Elearning
Contents |
What is it?
We often bookmark web pages by storing their addresses in a browser. Social bookmarking allows a user to store their bookmarks on a public web site, where they can be accessed from another computer or by other people. A natural advantage of this is that bookmarks can easily be shared with others.
Social bookmarking is usually combined with collaborative tagging, where users are able to label individual items with their own tags. Existing bookmarks can then be searched by tags defined by any user. Through this process, bookmarks gradually become organised according to a taxonomy (or "folksonomy") generated by users themselves.
Social bookmarking sites generally provide links to the bookmarks of other users who have listed the same resource, permitting students to explore the bookmarks and tags of users with similar interests.
Bookmarks can also be annotated, allowing users to express their personal perspective on the value of the resource.
Trying it out
To try out social bookmarking for yourself, begin by registering with a site like del.icio.us or citeulike. This is normally a simple process of choosing a username, password and contact email. Once you are registered as a user, you can begin adding bookmarks to your collection.
Bookmarks can be added manually, by filling out a form on the social bookmarking site itself. However, most sites also offer a toolbar button which allows users to quickly create bookmarks while surfing the web.
What is it good for?
Social bookmarking enables users to contribute in a simple way to shared repository of information, and to participate in the organisation and management of that information. As such, social bookmarking embodies a number of intellectual values, and may be a good way of inculcating these values in students.
Incorporating social bookmarking into online learning can be a good way of
- encouraging students to do collaborative research, with many students contributing to the same, shared body of references.
- bringing students into contact with the bibliographies of other researchers, and so give students get a sense of belonging to a living research community.
Basic actions
annotating, bookmarking, evaluating, finding, labelling, referencing, researching, searching, sharing, tagging,
Related patterns (challenges to which this tool can be applied)
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Risks / Abuses
There are three things to remember in using social bookmarking services in an educational context.
- del.icio.us is no librarian - the organisation of information on a social bookmarking site is done by amateurs. As a result, inefficient or inaccurate use of tags will be fairly common. For example,
- plural and singular forms are not treated as identical, so "war" and "wars" will give different results
- relation between concepts are not automatically preserved, so while all cats are animals, a search on "animals" may not produce resources that have simply been labelled with "cats".
- Communities can be biased - tagging of resources may simply reflect the biases of the community of users who bookmarked it. Consider, for example, the way the tag "foreign" might be applied.
- Entropy still applies - for social bookmarking to be successful, it requires a certain level of commitment to the maintenance of the information, e.g. the removal of broken links.
Getting started (setting up for class use)
- Decide on a single tag that will be included in every bookmark for class use - one option is to select the unit of study code plus the year, e.g. MECO1002-2007. This tag should be specific enough to be unique to class bookmarks, and simple enough to be remembered and correctly repeated by students.
- (Optional) Provide your students with a list of recommended tags that they use (as well as their own) when bookmarking for the class. These would be standardised ways of referring to the various topics or themes involved.
- Choose your preferred service (see the options below)
- Create an account for yourself
- Add an initial bookmark to show your students, and tag it appropriately
- Select and implement a means of accessing the service from your WebCT site (see below)
- Write some instructions for your students on how to set up an account for themselves
- Set students an easy first task to ensure they understand how to access and use the service
Accessing bookmarks from WebCT CE6
Social bookmarks are always hosted outside of WebCT.
Social bookmarks can be accessed from a WebCT site in two ways:
Create a link to the social bookmarking site
You can link from the homepage to the class's group bookmarking page, if available, or to the key shared tag (often the unit of study code).
Display an rss feed from the bookmark site (pictured)
Some bookmarking sites - del.icio.us is one of them - provide the user with the relevant html code, which can then be simply cut and pasted into a web page, or into the Header of a WebCT page.
The example on the right shows the result of using the code provided by del.icio.us and customizing the layout with a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). Instructions on how to do this are being written up.
Social bookmarking sites
For a comprehensive list of existing social bookmarking sites, see Wikipedia's list
Advantages / Disadvantages
Feel free to add to this list
| Implementation | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| del.icio.us |
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| citeulike |
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| Heurist |
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| Spurl |
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How it works (briefly)
Case-studies
References / Comments
Educause Learning Initiative (May, 2005) - "7 things you should know about Social Bookmarking" (PDF)
