Faceted navigation of social tagging applications

<p>The goal of this paper is to conduct an analysis of seventeen existing and proposed methodologies for the use of facets in social tagging applications, with particular emphasis placed&nbsp;on the extent to which these methodologies address the following questions:<br> ● How do you choose facets that can apply generally to all subjects in social tagging&nbsp;applications<br> ● How many facets would suffice to cover site members&rsquo; needs?<br> ● Who should choose the facets?<br> ● How do you ensure that the facets chosen reflect the needs of the site members?<br> ● How do you maintain the facets and impose quality control over them?<br> Results of this analysis indicate that these methodologies provide insufficient guidelines for&nbsp;the choice, evaluation, and maintenance of the facets.<br> An underlying problem in many of these studies is their lack of clear definitions of what&nbsp;constitutes a facet. The lack of emphasis on the mutual exclusivity of facets is particularly&nbsp;troublesome, since it is perhaps this attribute that would determine the effectiveness of<br> facets in a social tagging application. Most of the proposed methodologies do not address&nbsp;how facets are to be derived or maintained.<br> A proposed framework for a more rigorous approach to the incorporation of facets into&nbsp;social tagging applications is presented to facilitate the use of facet analysis as a bridge&nbsp;between the benefits of the grassroots, bottom-up approach to the selection of tags, and&nbsp;a more controlled and efficient organization and visual browsing of tags in social tagging&nbsp;applications.</p>