Metadata mechanisms: From ontology to folksonomy … and back

Abstract. In this paper we give a brief overview of different metadata mechanisms (like ontologies and folksonomies) and how they relate to each other. We identify major strengths and weaknesses of these mechanisms. We claim that these mechanisms can be classified from restricted (e.g., ontology) to free (e.g., free text tagging). In our view, these mechanisms should not be used in isolation, but rather as complementary solutions, in a continuous process wherein the strong points of one increase the semantic depth of the other. We give an overview of early active research already going on in this direction and propose that methodologies to support this process be developed. We demonstrate a possible approach, in which we mix tagging, taxonomy and ontology