Facets of user-assigned tags and their effectiveness in image retrieval

Purpose – This study aims to consider the value of user‐assigned image tags by comparing the facets that are represented in image tags with those that are present in image queries to see if there is a similarity in the way that users describe and search for images.Design/methodology/approach – A sample dataset was created by downloading a selection of images and associated tags from Flickr, the online photo‐sharing web site. The tags were categorised using image facets from Shatford's matrix, which has been widely used in previous research into image indexing and retrieval. The facets present in the image tags were then compared with the results of previous research into image queries.Findings – The results reveal that there are broad similarities between the facets present in image tags and queries, with people and objects being the most common facet, followed by location. However, the results also show that there are differences in the level of specificity between tags and queries, with image tags conta...

[1]  Louise Spiteri,et al.  Structure and form of folksonomy tags: The road to the public library catalogue , 2007, Webology.

[2]  Pauline Rafferty.  Informative Tagging of Images: The Importance of Modality in Interpretation , 2009 .

[3]  Mor Naaman,et al.  Context data in geo-referenced digital photo collections , 2004, MULTIMEDIA '04.

[4]  Sara Shatford Layne.  Some issues in the indexing of images , 1994 .

[5]  Shih-Fu Chang,et al.  A conceptual framework and empirical research for classifying visual descriptors , 2001 .

[6]  Alton Yeow-Kuan Chua,et al.  Weighing the Usefulness of Social Tags for Content Discovery , 2008, ICADL.

[7]  Hsin-Liang Chen.  An analysis of image queries in the field of art history , 2001 .

[8]  Mor Naaman,et al.  Why we tag: motivations for annotation in mobile and online media , 2007, CHI.

[9]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Image searching on the Excite Web search engine , 2001, Inf. Process. Manag..

[10]  Adam Mathes,et al.  Folksonomies-Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata , 2004 .

[11]  Daniel Zeng,et al.  How Useful Are Tags? - An Empirical Analysis of Collaborative Tagging for Web Page Recommendation , 2008, ISI Workshops.

[12]  Oded Nov,et al.  What drives content tagging: the case of photos on Flickr , 2008, CHI.

[13]  Paul Miller,et al.  Metadata for the Masses , 1996 .

[14]  Hsiao-Tieh Pu,et al.  An analysis of failed queries for web image retrieval , 2008, J. Inf. Sci..

[15]  Laura A. Dabbish,et al.  Labeling images with a computer game , 2004, AAAI Spring Symposium: Knowledge Collection from Volunteer Contributors.

[16]  Peter G. B. Enser,et al.  The evolution of visual information retrieval , 2008, J. Inf. Sci..

[17]  Catherine C. Marshall,et al.  No bull, no spin: a comparison of tags with other forms of user metadata , 2009, JCDL '09.

[18]  Jennifer Marlow,et al.  Flickr: a first look at user behaviour in the context of photography as serious leisure , 2008, Inf. Res..

[19]  Krystyna K. Matusiak.  Towards user-centered indexing in digital image collections , 2006, OCLC Syst. Serv..

[20]  Elaine Peterson,et al.  Beneath the Metadata: Some Philosophical Problems with Folksonomy , 2006 .

[21]  Sarah Clayton,et al.  User tagging of online cultural heritage items , 2008 .

[22]  Enrico Motta,et al.  Integrating Folksonomies with the Semantic Web , 2007, ESWC.

[23]  Pirkko Oittinen,et al.  Image retrieval by end-users and intermediaries in a journalistic work context , 2006, IIiX.

[24]  Mike Thelwall,et al.  General patterns of tag usage among university groups in Flickr , 2008, Online Inf. Rev..

[25]  P. Jason Morrison.  Folksonomies: Why are they tagging, and why do we want them to? , 2008 .

[26]  Seth van Hooland.  From Spectator to Annotator : Possibilities offered by User-Generated Metadata for Digital Cultural Heritage Collections , 2006 .

[27]  Joan E. Beaudoin.  A preliminary investigation of image indexing: The influence of domain knowledge, indexer experience and image characteristics , 2008 .

[28]  Margaret E. I. Kipp,et al.  Patterns and Inconsistencies in Collaborative Tagging Systems: An Examination of Tagging Practices , 2007, ASIST.

[29]  Joan E. Beaudoin.  Folksonomies: Flickr image tagging: Patterns made visible , 2008 .

[30]  Joan E. Beaudoin.  Flickr image tagging: Patterns made visible , 2007 .

[31]  Abebe Rorissa,et al.  User-generated descriptions of individual images versus labels of groups of images: A comparison using basic level theory , 2008, Inf. Process. Manag..

[32]  P. Schmitz,et al.  Inducing Ontology from Flickr Tags , 2006 .

[33]  Shih-Fu Chang,et al.  Conceptual framework for indexing visual information at multiple levels , 1999, Electronic Imaging.

[34]  Erwin Panofsky,et al.  Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History , 1955 .

[35]  Jakob Voß,et al.  Tagging, Folksonomy & Co - Renaissance of Manual Indexing? , 2007, ArXiv.

[36]  E. Panofsky.  Meaning in the Visual Arts , 1970 .

[37]  Tony Hammond,et al.  Social Bookmarking Tools (I): A General Overview , 2005, D Lib Mag..

[38]  Megan A. Winget,et al.  USER-DEFINED CLASSIFICATION ON THE ONLINE PHOTO SHARING SITE FLICKR…OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE MILLION TYPING MONKEYS , 2006 .

[39]  Andrew M. Cox.  Flickr: a case study of Web2.0 , 2008, Aslib Proc..

[40]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Linguistic Aspects of Web Queries. , 2000 .

[41]  Sara Shatford Layne,et al.  Some Issues in the Indexing of Images , 1994, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[42]  P. Jason Morrison,et al.  Tagging and searching: Search retrieval effectiveness of folksonomies on the World Wide Web , 2008, Inf. Process. Manag..

[43]  Sabine Süsstrunk,et al.  The Flux: creating a large annotated image database , 2008, Electronic Imaging.

[44]  Katsumi Tanaka,et al.  Can Social Tagging Improve Web Image Search? , 2008, WISE.

[45]  Tim O'Reilly,et al.  What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software , 2007 .

[46]  Kristina Lerman,et al.  Social Browsing on Flickr , 2006, ICWSM.

[47]  Pauline Rafferty,et al.  Flickr and Democratic Indexing: dialogic approaches to indexing , 2007, Aslib Proc..

[48]  Masood Masoodian,et al.  How people describe their image information needs: a grounded theory analysis of visual arts queries , 2004, Proceedings of the 2004 Joint ACM/IEEE Conference on Digital Libraries, 2004..

[49]  Corinne Jörgensen,et al.  Image Access, the Semantic Gap, and Social Tagging as a Paradigm Shift , 2007 .

[50]  Sara Shatford,et al.  Analyzing the Subject of a Picture: A Theoretical Approach , 1986 .

[51]  Wolfgang G. Stock,et al.  Collective indexing of emotions in images. A study in emotional information retrieval , 2009 .

[52]  Hsiao-Tieh Pu.  An analysis of Web image queries for search , 2003, ASIST.

[53]  Brian Vickery.  Information Representation and Retrieval in the Digital Age , 2004, Program.

[54]  M. Naaman,et al.  Position Paper, Tagging, Taxonomy, Flickr, Article, ToRead , 2006 .

[55]  Bernard J. Jansen.  Searching for digital images on the web , 2008, J. Documentation.

[56]  George Macgregor,et al.  Collaborative tagging as a knowledge organisation and resource discovery tool , 2006 .

[57]  Wolfgang Nejdl,et al.  Can all tags be used for search? , 2008, CIKM '08.

[58]  Christian Wolff,et al.  Tagging tagging. Analysing user keywords in scientific bibliography management systems , 2008, J. Digit. Inf..

[59]  Lora Aroyo,et al.  The Semantic Web: Research and Applications , 2009, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[60]  Hsin-Liang Chen,et al.  An analysis of image queries in the field of art history , 2001, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[61]  Jennifer Trant.  Tagging, Folksonomy and Art Museums: Early Experiments and Ongoing Research , 2009, J. Digit. Inf..

[62]  Corinne Jörgensen,et al.  Indexing Images: Testing an Image Description Template. , 1996 .

[63]  Samantha Kelly Hastings.  Index Access Points in a Study of Intellectual Access to Digitized Art Images , 1995, ICHIM, Multimedia Computing and Museums.

[64]  Alton Yeow-Kuan Chua,et al.  Tagging, Sharing and the Influence of Personal Experience , 2009, J. Digit. Inf..

[65]  Jennifer Trant,et al.  Tagging, Folksonomy and Art Museums: Results of steve.museum's research , 2009 .

[66]  Gene Smith.  Information architecture: Tagging: Emerging trends , 2008 .

[67]  Jonathon S. Hare,et al.  Facing the reality of semantic image retrieval , 2007, J. Documentation.

[68]  Niranjan Balasubramanian,et al.  Analysis of User Image Descriptions and Automatic Image Indexing Vocabularies: An Exploratory Study , 2004 .

[69]  Pauline Rafferty,et al.  Constructing an image indexing template for The Children's Society: Users' queries and archivists' practice , 2007, J. Documentation.

[70]  Heting Chu,et al.  Information Representation and Retrieval in the Digital Age (ASIST Monograph Series) by Heting Chu, Medford, NJ: Information Today; 2003. 248 p. ISBN 1-57387-172-9 , 2003, Information retrieval (Boston).

[71]  Abby Goodrum.  I Can't Tell You What I Want, but I'll Know It When I See It: Terminological Disconnects in Digital Image Reference , 2005 .

[72]  Raya Fidel,et al.  The image retrieval task: implications for the design and evaluation of image databases , 1997, New Rev. Hypermedia Multim..

[73]  Bernardo A. Huberman,et al.  Usage patterns of collaborative tagging systems , 2006, J. Inf. Sci..

[74]  Shih-Fu Chang,et al.  A conceptual framework and empirical research for classifying visual descriptors , 2001, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[75]  James Caverlee,et al.  Profiling Social Networks: A Social Tagging Perspective , 2009, D Lib Mag..

[76]  Katrin Weller.  Seeding , Weeding , Fertilizing – Different Tag Gardening Activities for Folksonomy Maintenance and Enrichment , 2008 .

[77]  Marcel Worring,et al.  Classification of user image descriptions , 2004, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[78]  Peter G. B. Enser,et al.  Analysis of user need in image archives , 1997, J. Inf. Sci..

[79]  Wolfgang G. Stock,et al.  Folksonomy and information retrieval , 2008, ASIST.

[80]  Louise F. Spiteri,et al.  The structure and form of folksonomy tags: The road to the public library catalog , 2007 .

[81]  Brian C. O'Connor,et al.  Modelling what users see when they look at images: a cognitive viewpoint , 2002, J. Documentation.

[82]  Roelof van Zwol,et al.  Classifying tags using open content resources , 2009, WSDM '09.

[83]  Timme Bisgaard Munk,et al.  Folksonomy, The Power Law & the Significance of the Least Effort , 2007, KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION.

[84]  Marieke Guy,et al.  Folksonomies: Tidying Up Tags? , 2006, D Lib Mag..

[85]  Edie M. Rasmussen,et al.  Intellectual Access to Images , 1999, Libr. Trends.

[86]  Roelof van Zwol,et al.  Flickr tag recommendation based on collective knowledge , 2008, WWW.

[87]  Edie M. Rasmussen,et al.  Searching for images: The analysis of users' queries for image retrieval in American history , 2003, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[88]  Masood Masoodian,et al.  Looking for a picture: an analysis of everyday image information searching , 2006, Proceedings of the 6th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL '06).

[89]  Jane Hunter,et al.  Harvana: harvesting community tags to enrich collection metadata , 2008, JCDL '08.

[90]  Jennifer Trant,et al.  Studying Social Tagging and Folksonomy: A Review and Framework , 2009, J. Digit. Inf..

[91]  Corinne Jörgensen,et al.  Attributes of Images in Describing Tasks , 1998, Inf. Process. Manag..