Understanding content tagging is an essential skill for effective use of a wide range of internet tools. WordPress blogs now, in addition to Categories, offer a powerful set of tagging tools. But what exactly is the difference?

I’ve now mentioned the addition of the new tagging functionality, briefly in passing, to a few edubuzz bloggers. I haven’t felt, though, that I’ve succeeded in explaining the difference very well. Today I decided to have a look for different approaches, and found this really good explanation of the difference, from Stephanie Booth, who - successfully - argued the case for adding tags to WordPress.

Here are, in my opinion, the main differences between tags and categories, from the “tagger” point of view.

• categories exist before the item I’m categorizing, whereas tags are created in reaction to the item, often in an ad hoc manner: I need to fit the item in a category, but I adapt tags to the item;
• categories should be few, tags many;
• categories are expected to have a pretty constant granularity, whereas tags can be very general like “switzerland” or very particular like “bloggyfriday“;
• categories are planned, tags are spontanous, they have a brainstorm-like nature, as Kevin explains very well: You look at the picture and type in the few words it makes you think of, move on to the next, and you’re done.
• relations between categories are tree-like, but those between tags are network-like;
• categories are something you choose, tags are generally something you gush out;
• categories help me classify what I’m talking about, and tags help me share or spread it;
• …

 Link

One of the many things I’ve missed over the past few years has been the set-up of the Sector Skills Development Agency.  What I learned today, via Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce’s Education Policy Group, is that their 25 Sector Skills Councils, set up to manage skills within industry sectors, provide a great source of skills information for specific careers.

Examples include:

• Creative and Cultural Skills
• Skillfast UK - for Fashion and Textiles
• SEMTA - for Science, Engineering, Maths and Technologies

In each case I’ve looked at, the web sites include a section for those interested in developing careers in the sector.  It’s the sort of thing that could be very useful in helping support course choices.