LearnPress uses a system of “free” tags or, more formally, a folksonomy. Any author or editor may tag a page or media record to which he or she has editing rights with any tag or tags desired. There are no technically controlled vocabularies nor menus of checkboxes to restrict choices, and there is no formal or technical approval process for new tags.
There are, however, best practices for tagging, and some collections may have a core set of controlled-vocabulary tags defined by editorial staff. Because there are no technical restrictions on tagging, it is important that all editors understand these best practices and vocabularies.
To allow for some consistency and editorial control, each “free” tag entered by an editor is mapped to a canonical tag that may be altered by a manager (see below). For purposes of searching and finding related resources on the public website, all free tags mapped to the same tag are considered identical. If, for example, the free tags “American toad” and “Bufo americanus” are both mapped to the tag “American toad,” then a search for either tag will find resources tagged with either.
By default, when a new tag is created, it is mapped to itself, i.e., the tag as entered by the editor is both free tag and (canonical) tag. If a manager takes no action to remap tags, all tags entered by editors will remain functionally distinct.
Tags are entered directly into a textarea in the page or media record. Enter one tag per line. Do not use tags with commas, as they may be interpreted as a comma-separated list.
When the record is saved, tags entered will be interpreted as free tags. If a free tag does not already exist in the database, a record will be created for it (and it will be its own canonical tag; see above).
The tags entered will then be compared to the records in the tagged_pagestagged_media table (for pages and media records, respectively), and those tables will be updated accordingly. Records in these tables are tied to the numeric ID of tag records, so that if a manager edits the free tag (see below), the edited free tag will appear on the page or media record.
Managers can edit, map, and delete tags through the admin » manage tags tab.
To edit or remap a tag, click the Edit button next to a free tag/tag pair. The free tag and tag will be replaced with editable text fields and may be edited in place.
Edit a free tag only to correct an obvious error that is not likely to be replicated by a user. If an editor mistyped “alligator” as “allihator,” the error should be corrected in both free tag and tag. However, common misspellings should be left in place and mapped to correctly-spelled tags (see below).
Tags (as opposed to free tags) should always reflect the canonical form of a term, with correct spelling and most common usage and following best practices. Managers should edit tags as necessary to make tags canonical.
There are several cases in which a manager should map an existing free tag to a new, canonical tag rather than editing the free tag.
When a tag is removed from a page or media record, it remains in the database. A manager can delete a tag through the admin » manage tags tab. Deleting a tag will also delete all references to the tag.
A tag should be deleted only if it is, in the opinion of the manager, not at all meaningful or useful. If there is a meaningful form or version of the tag, the manager should map the free tag to a canonical tag of that form, to preserve (and improve) tagging of pages and media already performed.
Tags are primarily finding aids. Editors and managers should tag with the user in mind, and should choose canonical tags to reflect the term most likely to be searched for. Who would be looking for this resource, and what terms would they most likely search for?
Plural forms of nouns will normally be canonical. A tag should fill in the blank in a sentence such as “This resource is about…” or So, for example, a page might be about caterpillars, not about caterpillar. This also reflects most common user practice; a user is more likely to search for “caterpillars” rather than for “caterpillar.” Of course, for common terms, both singular and plural forms should be included in the database and mapped to the plural.
However, for very specific terms, the singular might be preferred: You might think of a page as being about the black swallowtail butterfly rather than about black swallowtail butterflies, and a user is more likely to search for the singular form of a highly specific term.
Care should be taken not to “over-tag” resources. Tagging a page or media record with too many terms will dilute the value of those tags as finding aids for related resources. More important, using a tag too often will dilute its value as a finding aid. So, for example, do not tag a photograph of Lenin with “social studies” because it could be used in a social studies classroomm, and do not tag a biography of Abraham Lincoln with “Illinois” (unless it contains significant information about the history and/or geography of the state).
As always, consider the user perspective when considering a tag. If you were a teacher and searched for the tag, would you be likely to find the resource in question helpful? If so, use the tag; if not, don’t.
Exception: Always use the tag “North Carolina” where relevant — even simply for photographs taken in North Carolina. Because our collection is so specific to North Carolina, this tag is not an effective finding aid anyway. Rather, it performs a public-relations function by showing the extent of our state-specific resources.