Better Know a GeoCommons Feature, Tags

This editions feature is one of the more simple but useful features within GeoCommons, tags.  Tags are ways to categorize data to make it more easily searchable and browsable.  Tags are commonly seen on sites such as Flickr, Delicious, and Youtube, as well as in blogging software such as WordPress.  GeoCommons supports tags for both maps and datasets, they are a great way to create collections of data and make information you are sharing easier to find.

When you upload or link to data from GeoCommons the option to add tags shows up on the final edit page of the process.  For this example I decided to map Flickr tags.  This week in D.C. filming of the Transformers 3 movie is going on, so the tag I searched for was “transformers.”  To get the URL feed to add to GeoCommons I went to Flickr and clicked “Explorer” then “Popular Tags” and searched for “transformers”.  At the bottom of the search results page you can grab the link for either a GeoRSS Feed or KML feed of the results.

I then copied that link and went to GeoCommons and clicks “Add a URL Link.”   Next I pasted the link into the “Enter a URL:” text box.

After this I began to edit edit the metadata for my feed.  You’ll notice the second text box on the “Describe and Share your Data” page is “Organize with tags:” you can type your tags here.

You’ll notice that in my screenshot there are many tags below the textbox.  Tags you’ve recently used appear here to add those tags to your dataset just click on them and they will be automatically added to the textbox.  If you are uploading multiple datasets and want to tag them similarly this can be useful to avoid typos and misspellings.

Once I’ve appropriately tagged, filled out the metadata and saved my dataset then I’m ready to make a map.  I click “Make a Map” from the dataset and zoom to Washington D.C.  Next I label the map and hit save.  Once you hit save the “Details” window of the map pops up, this is where you enter a description and tags of your map.  I labeled my dataset “transformers and flickr” but I also add the tag “DC” to the map since I’ve zoomed in on the D.C. area.

Once I’ve saved my map both it and my dataset will show up when I search by tag in GeoCommons.  In order to search by tag you preface your search string with the word tags (for example tags:”transformers”).  By searching the tag “transformers” you can see that there is an additional dataset I tagged yesterday as well.

So to make your data more easily searchable,discoverable and organized, tag your data and maps today!