THESIS SUMMARY: THE IMPORTANCE OF USERS CREATING SOCIAL CLASSIFICATIONS

The implementation in mobile phones and the affordability of digital photo and video cameras has changed the way and occasions photos and videos are recorded. Financial and social barriers are gone and the action of photographing occurs so much it has almost become unnoticeable to us. All this digital material is stored on hard-drives, optical discs or the web. The increasing volume and presence of cameras has caused an enormous increase in the volume of personal visual data collections.

With the current systems for information retrieval it is difficult to semantically retrieve information from these visual data collections. At this moment the main focus of information retrieval is on the retrieval side. A focus on retrieving information out of existing data collections. With the current state of these systems for information retrieval it is still difficult to get positive results when retrieving semantically information from these sets of data.

In order to create a sustainable system for semantic data retrieval the focus has to be changed from the side of information retrieval to the side of information classification. Creating more valuable sets of data on the side where the information is created. Using the widely available options for meta information within the existing filetypes. A classification like this is of such a scale users should be involved into the process of classifying the data they create. Users have more knowledge about the information they have created than anybody else. It is a fallacy to give users the control to create data and information but to take away or not use the power to classify it.

Driven by the change operating systems are making to a different type of workflow moving away from the hierarchic namespace model. Interface design, group classification and the use of structures already existing within language can create a system that involves users into semantically classifying their data collections for successful semantic personal or public retrieval of visual information.

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