MUTO: the modular unified tagging ontology

  • Authors:

  • Steffen Lohmann;Paloma Díaz;Ignacio Aedo

  • Affiliations:

  • Universidad Carlos III de, Madrid, Madrid, Spain;Universidad Carlos III de, Madrid, Madrid, Spain;Universidad Carlos III de, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Semantic Systems
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Tagging has become a popular indexing method within the last years and can be considered one of the cornerstones of the Social Web. Several ontologies have been developed that aim to formally describe tagging and folksonomies in order to improve their interoperability and processability. However, each of these ontologies covers different aspects of the domain; finding the right ontology for a certain purpose and aligning it correctly with other ontologies is difficult. This paper critically reviews available tagging ontologies and presents a unified vocabulary that combines the 'best of' these ontologies in one consistent schema. A central goal was to ensure high concept reuse by simultaneously avoiding redundancies. A modular design was chosen to reduce complexity and prevent inconsistencies. It groups the different elements of tagging and separates advanced concepts from the core ontology. Key design decisions are justified and modeling alternatives are discussed, not only to explain the unified ontology but also to contribute to a better understanding of the conceptual space of tagging and folksonomies.