1 Descriptive Tagging ====================== Author: Date: 2012-04-10 11:30:55 1.1 Purpose ------------ It is desirable to be able to tag citations with keywords or phrases chosen from a controlled vocabulary and then use those tags in subsequent searching, retrieval, and citation review. There is no exact analog to this in the existing system. The closest thing to is the addition of free text notes in restricted form that a user can use to search for at a later time. For example, Cynthia might put the text "MXT" somewhere in the note field for a citation with the intent that Minaxi will search for that string and look at all of the citations marked that way. However the use of free text in a note field is not a reliable system for this. It is a workaround for a capability that is not present in the existing system but could be added to the new one. Some uses for tags include: * Mark citations that need special handling * Call specific citations to the attention of other users * Add comments and notes to citations * Mark and recall citations that have been set aside for some reason 1.2 Notes ---------- * Tags vs. status A tag is not the same thing as a status. Every citation always has a particular status but tags are entirely optional. Status values determine what will happen to a citation, who will see it, who has responsibility for it, etc. Tags do not determine anything about the processing of the citation. Tags are for the use of human users, not software. It is intended that they will only be used for searching and for communicating information from one user to another (or to herself at a different time.) * Vocabulary control Tags are most useful if they come from a controlled vocabulary. It would defeat the purpose and make tag searching impractical if people used different character strings to represent what is really a single concept. So tag vocabulary control is desirable. The vocabulary should be under the control of the system administrators - who could add new tags, edit tag names, or inactivate tags. Perhaps the addition of new tags should be something that all of the board managers discuss before they are added. For the present, let's assume that there is a single pool of tags available to all board managers and users. Creating user or board specific tags is a complication that shouldn't be indulged in unless and until experience shows a definite requirement for it. * Information associated with a tag When a citation is tagged, the following information is stored: + Unique id Enables people and programs to refer to this specific tag record. + Citation id Citation/article tagged. + Optional summary topic id A tag might be applied only to a citation with respect to a particular summary topic, or might not. This enables a user to exclude tags from a display that are specific to other topics or other editorial boards. + Tag id - what tag is this Identifies a row in a table containing all of the allowable tags, with their names + User id of person adding the tag to the citation + Datetime of tagging of this citation + Optional comment(s) Sometimes the presence of a tag is all the information needed. Sometimes some comment text is desirable. - Multiple comments? It should be possible to comment on a tag comment or add more information to a tag comment. In previous iterations of this document we proposed editing comments and/or using multiple tags, each with the same tag name but a different comment. We even considered threaded tags and comments. Since then we have provisionally adopted an ability to add multiple comments to the "state" or "status" of a citation and it seems reasonable and consistent to use an identical mechanism for tags. So, to add more information to a tag, add another comment. Each comment would be stored and displayed with the author's userid and the date and time the comment was made. Multiple comments on the same tag instance would be displayed in chronological order. - Editing comments? My current thinking is that comments should be immutable, i.e., they can't be edited. To say something different, add another comment. * Multiple occurrences Unlike status values, we would allow a citation to accumulate any number of tags. A single tag ID could be associated with one citation multiple times. * Inactivating tags When a tag is no longer relevant to a citation the information should be removed from default status displays and searches, but should not be lost. We are using an "active_status" flag = Inactive in our status management remove a status from active use and routine display and the same approach seems reasonable and consistent in tag management. If a tag is marked inactive, it would normally not display in a status display for the citation and, if searching for citations with that particular tag, a citation with only inactive occurrences of the tag would not be found. However in both status and search screens there should be a check box to cause inclusion of inactive information.