Transition to TagTeam

Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP) >> Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) >> Transition to TagTeam

• For general background on TagTeam itself, see our Intro to TagTeam.

The Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) now runs on TagTeam. If you previously subscribed to OATP feeds as a reader, or helped build OATP feeds as a tagger, this page explains how to continue with the TagTeam version of the project. If you haven't previously participated in OATP, this page explains how to get started. As a reader, you should stop subscribing to the Connotea versions of the OATP feeds and start subscribing to the TagTeam versions. Only the TagTeam versions are now comprehensive and up to date. As a tagger, you may continue to tag from Connotea if you wish. But you are now free to tag for OATP from other tagging platforms as well. Either way, you'll have to tell TagTeam to follow your OATP tagging activity.

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Participating as a reader

Please see the page of OATP links. We have now updated it to include the TagTeam versions of the primary and secondary project feeds. Now that it's ready, we've deleted the same links from this page so that we don't have to maintain two separate lists.

Also see the summary of different ways that OATP helps readers stay on top of new OA developments. We posted the summary as soon as the transition to TagTeam was complete.

Participating as a tagger

• Anyone may create a TagTeam account, and anyone with an account may use TagTeam as a tagging platform.

• Creating a TagTeam account lets you create your own TagTeam "hubs" or projects. You may always tag items for your own hubs, but you may only tag items for other hubs with the approval of the hub owner. The OATP hub is owned by Peter Suber.

• If you previously tagged for the Connotea version of OATP, then note these differences in the new, TagTeam version of OATP.
  • In Connotea, if you put many tags on the same item, you could separate the tags with commas or spaces. In TagTeam you must use commas. TagTeam allows tags to contain spaces. Hence, what you might intend to be several tags separated by spaces, TagTeam will interpret as one jumbo tag.
  • In Connotea, if many people tagged the same item, then the item appeared many times in the project feed, cluttering it and reducing its usefulness for busy readers. Hence conscientious users tried to see whether a new tagworthy item had already been tagged, which was it was wise, even if irksome and time-consuming. In TagTeam, you no longer have to worry about that. If many people tag the same item, TagTeam puts it in the project feed just once, and displays all the tags applied to that item by all taggers.

• To tag items for OATP means to use OATP tags. At least that means using oa.new to tag new OA developments. Beyond that, it's desirable but not strictly necessary to tag new developments with relevant subtopic tags, such as "oa.journals", "oa.chemistry", and "oa.france". For the range of OA-related subtopics, OATP accepts user-defined tags (in the "oa.something" format) as well as a growing number of official tags. For more detail, see the page of OATP tags.

• If you haven't previously tagged for OATP, then please see the project conventions and tips.

Using TagTeam as your tagging platform

1. Create a TagTeam account.
   • Go to the sign in page and sign up.
   • You may now create TagTeam "hubs" or projects, and tag items for your own hubs. To tag items for OATP, take the next step.
2. Log in to TagTeam and go to the OATP hub. Click on the Contact tab and fill out the web form, asking to participate in OATP as a tagger. We'll need your real name and a working email address.
   • Our policy is to approve all requests to tag for OATP, and only withdraw approval for those who generate spam or persistently tag offtopic items.
   • Approval requires a human action, and sometimes the relevant people are traveling or crunched. We'll act ASAP, and send you an email as soon as you're approved.
3. Put the TagTeam's tagging bookmarklet in your browser bar and start tagging!
   • Once you are authorized to tag for OATP (previous step), you can find the bookmarklet by logging in to TagTeam and the OATP hub, and clicking on the Bookmarks tab. Drag the "Add to TagTeam" link to your browser's bookmarks toolbar.
   • Remember to use oa.new (the OATP primary tag) for all new items you want to include in the OATP primary feed (because they are OA-related and new in the last six months), and omit it from the items you want to exclude from the primary feed (for example, because they are not new).
   • If you haven't already seen them, see the OATP tagging conventions and some of the more common OATP tags.

Using a platform other than TagTeam

You may tag for OATP using any tagging platform which creates RSS (or Atom) feeds for its tags. This includes Connotea, CiteULike, Delicious, and many others. You do not need to use TagTeam itself and you do not need to create a TagTeam account.

1. Create a tag for items you want OATP to include, for example, add2oatp, jane-add2oatp, 14159, or zebra. Call this your special tag.
   • Your special tag may be any string of characters accepted as a tag by your chosen tagging platform.
2. Figure out the URL of the RSS (or Atom) feed generated by your chosen tagging platform for your special tag.
   • If your chosen tagging platform generates a feed for your use of the special tag, and a separate feed for general or total use of the same tag, then here you want to use the former.
3. Open TagTeam, click on the Contact tab, and fill out the web form, asking to participate in OATP as a tagger. We'll need your real name, a working email address, the name of the tagging platform you want to use, and the URL of the RSS feed for your special tag.
   • You needn't have a TagTeam account. If you have an account, you needn't be logged in.
   • When you are approved, TagTeam's OATP hub will subscribe to the feed for your special tag.
   • Use your special tag for all the items you want OATP to include, and omit it from all the items you want to OATP to exclude. If you use it for too many items unrelated to OATP, then OATP will unusubscribe from your feed.
   • Similarly, use oa.new (the OATP primary tag) for all new items you want to include in the OATP primary feed (because they are OA-related and new in the last six months), and omit it from the items you want to exclude from the primary feed (for example, because they are not new).
   • The OATP policy is to subscribe to all apparently relevant feeds, and only unsubscribe from those that generate spam or persistently tag offtopic items.
   • If you apply many tags to the same item, including your special tag, then OATP will harvest all the tags you used.
   • If you haven't already seen them, see the OATP tagging conventions and some of the more common OATP tags.

Choosing a tagging platform. When picking a tagging platform to use for OATP, here's one criterion to consider beyond the obvious ones such as familiarity, features, and uptime. OATP is developing a standard tagging vocabulary or ontology. As it does, it will automatically change deprecated tags to approved tags. (This is a powerful feature of TagTeam that some projects will use and some will not; OATP will use it.) If you tag for OATP in TagTeam, then OATP may change your tags to conform to the evolving ontology. If you tag for OATP from another platform, then only the TagTeam copies of your tag records will change; your original tags in the original platform will be unaffected.

Importing Connotea records into TagTeam

If you tagged items in Connotea for OATP before June 22, 2012, then we'd like to import your Connotea tag records into TagTeam. This requires a one-time export from Connotea, and a one-time import into TagTeam. This process will leave your Connotea records and Connotea account intact for future use.

Connotea is the only tagging platform OATP used before moving to TagTeam. Hence, there's no need to import OATP records into TagTeam from any other platform.

The purpose of importing your OATP records from Connotea is to make the TagTeam database of OATP as complete as possible for searching, remixing, and exporting. However, we don't need to import your Connotea records before you start tagging for TagTeam. If you want to continue tagging for OATP, we recommend signing up to tag for the TagTeam version of OATP first, and importing your Connotea records second.

1. Go to this URL, http://www.connotea.org/data/user/USERNAME?download=file, where USERNAME is your Connotea username.
   • To confirm that you're downloading your own data, Connotea will ask you to log in (even if you're already logged in).
   • Once you log in, your Connotea records will start downloading to a file with an .rdf extension.
2. If you haven't already done so, sign up to tag for the TagTeam version of OATP. See the section above on using TagTeam as your tagging platform.
3. Log in to TagTeam, go to the OATP hub, and click on the Bookmarks tab. Click on "New Bookmarks Collection" and create a collection to hold the records you're about to import from Connotea. When you've created the collection, click its name under the "Bookmarks" tab to go to its details page. Then click the "Import Items" tab. Attach the .rdf file you downloaded from Connotea, make sure the type is set to "Connotea RDF export", and click "Import Items."

It may take 30-45 minutes for TagTeam to process an import file. Some items will appear in your bookmark collection immediately, and the rest will appear as the import proceeds.

Connotea will only export 1,000 records at a time. The instructions above will work for users with 1,000 or fewer records to export. If you created more than 1,000 Connotea tag records, contact us for details.

Invitation

If you appreciate the power of TagTeam, consider creating a TagTeam hub for one of your own tag-based research projects. OATP is just the first of what we hope will be many projects running on TagTeam.

If you launch a TagTeam hub, let us know about it. When we brag about TagTeam, we can brag about your project too.