Title: From folksonomies to ontologies: employing wisdom of the crowds to serve learning purposes

Authors: Mathias Lux, Gisela Dosinger

Addresses: Department for Information Technology, Klagenfurt University, Universitatsstrasse 65-67, Klagenfurt 9020, Austria. ' Know-Center, Competence Center for Knowledge Based Applications, Inffeldgasse 21a, Graz 8010, Austria

Abstract: Is Web 2.0 just hype or just a buzzword, which might disappear in the near future? One way to find answers to these questions is to investigate the actual benefit of the Web 2.0 for real use cases. Within this contribution we study a very special aspect of the Web 2.0 – the folksonomy – and its use within self-directed learning. Guided by conceptual principles of emergent computing we point out methods, which might be able to let semantics emerge from folksonomies and discuss the effect of the results in self-directed learning.

Keywords: social software; communities; folksonomy; ontology; higher education; self-directed learning; knowledge transfer; knowledge sharing; semantics; crowds.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKL.2007.016709

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 2007 Vol.3 No.4/5, pp.515 - 528

Published online: 17 Jan 2008 *

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