Between ontology and folksonomy: A study of collaborative and implicit ontology evolution

We present our first user study of CRAFT, a semantic prototype for collaborative investigation and analysis, which allows users to extend the system's ontology to capture new concepts as they conduct their work. We devised a paradigm in which multiple series of ontologies evolve in different trajectories from the same initial point. We analyze the ontology evolution quantitatively with several metrics, and user behavior qualitatively through interviews and observation. Based on our study, we propose a set of design suggestions for semantic applications with collaborative and implicit ontology development. Copyright 2008 ACM.