Application of structural equation modelling in exploring tag patterns: A pilot study

Abstract

This pilot study examines the semantic structure of tag space in Library and Information Science (LIS) using confirmatory factor analysis of social tags from Delicious.com. This study is one of the few studies to employ structural equation modelling (SEM) in investigating dimensions of Web spaces based on social tagging data. This study examines the post data collected from 34 LIS related websites bookmarked on delicious.com. Collected data was analysed using three statistical techniques: correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), to confirm the structure of the social tagging space. Preliminary analysis shows that the semantic structure of the tagging data shows similar connections to those present in the real world. These methodologies can be used to identify the strength of connections between related tagged websites.