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A GAME OF TAG

Your It!

          The tags that I used to organize my thesis are, in theory, not all that different from the classic childhood game of tag, or from the kind of tag you might find on clothing at a store.  They are labels for things, and they help with sorting the 'it' from the 'not-it'.  In terms of websites, they are a kind of metadata that can be used for clear identification (like a tag on clothing) as well as hidden to assign roles and locations for things (like in the game).   My notes using the digital pen worked in a similar fashion.  The writing and drawing acted to mark specific points in the conversation; a clear label for an unseen highlight in audio* content.  Within my thesis, I have relied on different systems of tags, both to identify and catalog individual elements.  Below are brief descriptions of some of the different systems that I used.

*(My sessions with Megan Gaffney focused on video, although audio was used as a syncing mechanism.)

Thesis Tags 

          It seemed only fitting for my written thesis to have the same type of navigation as the rest of my work.  I created the Thesis Map to illustrate and tie together the interrelated themes within my thesis, and using some simple HTML created hyperlinks within the content to allow the map to function.

Video Tags

Using Youtube to synchronize the notes and video had benefits beyond extending modalities. Specific segments within videos can be directly linked to by adding tag information to the URL, allowing for very precise referencing. I have included some of these tagged video links within my thesis that send you directly to the moment of a quote.

Note Tags 

          This manual system was the first step in the process, and perhaps the most important.  While documenting sessions during my thesis, my written and drawn descriptions were labeled using simplified image and word tags to identify themes in content.  This system matured through the progression of the project as the notes and tags were integrated into the online archive.

          Perhaps it is worth mentioning here that this method of tagging content in my notes with symbols and labels began when I began working as a Notetaker at RIT.  I found it impacted my attention and retention as well as providing multimodal information for the supported students.  My interest in pursuing more interactive options for these students lead me to some of the technology I used in this project.

Archive Tags  

          Each set of notes was uploaded onto the Note Archive website, which involved another layer of tagging.  Each post was allowed 20 tags or 200 characters (whichever came first), allowing me to transcribe my note tags into a much more maleable online system; not only more accessible to other people, but more accessible to me.  The pooled notes became searchable and allowed me to monitor the formation of inter-relationships within the content over time.  

          I created categories of the archive tags.  Name Tags, which identify the artists present in the post, and Media Tags, which identify the media used, are strictly used to organize the navigation of the website.  Image Tags and Word Tags are used both for website navigation and to find content-based overlaps within the notes.  I arranged the word and image tags into 5 categories, visually correlating frequency with size, and sorted the results with the most popular themes on top. 

Image and Word Tags

"...Pictures can induce strong feelings in the reader, but they can also lack the specificity of words. Words, on the other hand, offer that specificity, but can lack the immediate emotional charge of pictures, relying instead on a gradual cumulative effect. Together, of course, words and pictures can work miracles." (1)

          For the image tags, I chose content that could be easy to quickly draw as an icon.  A graphic smile seemed to represent situations where the speaker would laugh better than any word equivalent.  Hearts were easier to incorporate into and with content to describe an artist's inspirations.  The money sign and the exclamation point were intuitively my first response when related content popped up.

          I asked all the artists I worked with to create their own image to represent themselves and their work.  These were coded with the name tags on the website, allowing the notes to be sorted by artist.

           For the word tags, I had initially only planned to have Exact Tags corresponding with all the notes; If you clicked on a word or image in the side bar, it would pull up all the pages with that specific tag within the notes.  As my notes grew it became apparent that I was unintentionally collecting related doubles, so I began to carry around a reference sheet of word and image tags to keep themes consistant when they came up.  It was interesting to see the organic development of the trends.  Some presented themselves right off the bat, and I was able make early adjustments.  During my first set of notes with Seul Gi, I stopped myself from creating separate tags for all her materials (there were lots!), and used 'Materials' as a Umbrella Tag to cover them all.  Others wouldn't become obvious until much later.  By the time I realized that the 'Finish' tag I used in a session with George was a related double of the 'Resolution' tag within Mary's, it was too late to add anything to the notes.  I created Conglomerate Tags as a solution, linking the related themes with a 'Finish/Resolution' tag.

           After the notes were uploaded into the online Note Archive,  The image and word tags were utilized to find relationships within the collective content.  With 30 artists all in various stages of their thesis development, I was able to document a web of overlapping themes found within divergent perspectives.  To understand more about how you, an active participant within my thesis, can interact and navigate though the notes, visit the Experiential Stories section.