Knowledge Federation as Hypermedia Discourse

1© Simon Buckingham Shum

Knowledge Federation as

Hypermedia Discourse

Simon Buckingham Shum

Knowledge Media Institute

The Open University

Milton Keynes, UK

www.kmi.open.ac.uk/people/sbs

[email protected]

Knowledge Federation 2008, Dubrovnik, 20-22 Oct

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 License


About me

! Psychology -> Ergonomics -> Human-Computer Interaction -> Hypermedia ->Design Rationale -> OrganisationalMemory -> Collaboration Tools ->eLearning/ePublishing/eScience

--> Sensemaking and CollectiveIntelligence

Work in Knowledge Media Instituteat Open U., Europe’s largest

university (>220,000 students/yr)based in Milton Keynes

The Challenge


Our context (1)

“I want to talk about the challenge of our generation. […] Ourchallenge, our generation’s unique challenge, is learning tolive peacefully and sustainably in an extraordinarily crowdedworld.

“The way of solving problems requires one fundamentalchange, a big one, and that is learning that the challenges ofour generation are not us versus them, they are not usversus Islam, us versus the terrorists, us versus Iran, theyare us, all of us together on this planet against a set ofshared and increasingly urgent problems.”

Je!rey Sachs: 2007 Reith Lectureshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007


Our context (2)

“With these “minds”, a person will be well equippedto deal with what is expected, as well as with whatcannot be anticipated; without these minds, aperson will be at the mercy of forces that he or shecan’t understand, let alone control.

“The disciplined mind… the synthesizing mind…the creating mind… the respectful mind… theethical mind.”

Howard Gardner: Five Minds for the Future.Harvard Univ. Press, 2006: p.2

What I may have to o!er


What I may have to o!er…

Human-centred hypermediaperspective on knowledgestructuring and its literacy

Some elements ofa prototype KFinfrastructure?

Access to communities andresearch resources todevelop and test KF ideas


Ideas…

Foundations forFoundations forCivilizationCivilization……

Weapons of MassWeapons of MassDestructionDestruction……


Ideas… (aren’t everything)

So what’s

he got that

I haven’t

got?

Significance


Ideas…

Foundations forFoundations forCivilizationCivilization……

Weapons of MassWeapons of MassDestructionDestruction……


Significance?…

= ?


= ?

Significance?…


= ?

Significance?…

http://flickr.com/photos/pewari/354960548http://flickr.com/photos/voetmann/274550156

http://flickr.com/photos/notorious_indian/540058288


= ?context

Significance?…


= ?

Significance?…

= ?

= ?

= ?= ?

= ?= ?


=

Significance?…


Hypermedia Discourse Research

published claimsand arguments ashypermediadiscoursenetworks

team deliberationsas hypermediadiscourse networks

Scaffold emergent

models ofcontested worlds

by scaffolding

discourseabout them…

Sense / Making


Sensemaking

“Sensemaking is about such things as

placement of items into frameworks,

comprehending, redressing surprise,

constructing meaning, interacting in pursuit

of mutual understanding, and patterning.”

Karl Weick, 1995, p.6

Sensemaking in Organizations


In sensemaking communities

Ideas and ways to arguetruth/plausibility are offirst order importance




Representationsexternalise anddistribute cognition,mediate discourse,negotiate boundaries




Representationsexternalise anddistribute cognition,mediate discourse,negotiate boundaries

Arguably, social computing forsensemaking will make it easy to shareand annotate representations andoverlay conceptual and social networks


Knowledge Cartography

! “Maps are one of the oldest forms of human

communication. Map-making, like painting,

pre-dates both number systems and written

language. Primitive peoples made maps to

orientate themselves in both the living

environment and the spiritual worlds. Mapping

enabled them to transcend the limitations of

private, individual representations of terrain in

order to augment group planning, reasoning

and memory. Shared, visual representations

opened new possibilities for focusing collective

attention, re-living the past, envisaging new

scenarios, coordinating actions and making

decisions.” (Okada et al, 2008)


Knowledge Cartography

1. Clarify the intellectual moves andcommitments at di!erent levels. (e.g. Which

concepts are seen as more abstract? What relationshipsare legitimate? What are the key issues? What evidence isbeing appealed to?)

2. Incorporate further contributions from others,whether in agreement or not. The map is not

closed, but rather, has a!ordances designed to make iteasy for others to extend and restructure it.

3. Provoke, mediate, capture and improveconstructive discourse. This is central to

sensemaking in unfamiliar or contested domains, in whichthe primary challenge is to construct plausible narrativesabout how the world was, is, or might be, often in theabsence of complete, unambiguous data.

An Approach


In a nutshell…

Knowledge Federation researchhas most value to add incontested, poorly understooddomains

We haveto talk…

KF infrastructure is intrinsicallySocial as well as Technical.

We need to understand the di!erentkinds of discourse we must support

Sensemaking Infrastructure

…Beyond Annotation andTagging

<movies/demos to illustrate approaches>

CompendiumCompendium

•• personal or grouppersonal or group

concept mappingconcept mapping

•• real time meetingreal time meeting

capturecapture

•• participatory modellingparticipatory modelling

•• discourse as semanticdiscourse as semantic

hypertexthypertext


Discourse grounded in Horst Rittel’s IBIS:Issue-Based Information System


• Shared visual display• Simple notation• Template patterns• Node transclusions• Tagging• Hypermedia• Interoperability with

other data, servicesand user interfaces

Key elements of Compendium

Practitioner skillse.g. • Cognitive skills to chunk and link ideas

(Buckingham Shum)

• Dialogue Mapping (Conklin)

• Conversational Modelling (Sierhuis & Selvin)

• Participatory Hypermedia Construction(Selvin)

ModellingFrameworkse.g. • IBIS• CommonKADS• World Modelling• Critical Systems Heuristics

KnowledgeMedia


Compendium: hypertext discoursemapping/conceptual modelling


Compendium: Descendent of gIBIS

Modelling using Issue-templates


Modelling organisational processes inCompendium using a Template


Completing a Compendium template


GeneratingCustomDocuments andDiagrams fromCompendiumTemplates

Build

Assignable

Inventory

Assignable

Inventory

Deviations/

Changes

(Engr Sched)

Approvals

Integrated/

Revised

Requirements

Field

Specific

Assignments

/Assignment

List

Installation

Details/

Specs/NDO

Assignable

Inventory

Notice (E1)


Structure management in Compendium

! Associative linkingnodes in a shared context connected by graphical Map links

! Categorical membershipnodes in di!erent contexts connected by common attributes via metadata Tags

! Hypertextual Transclusionreuse of the same node in di!erent views

! Templatesreuse of the same structure in di!erent views

! HTML, XML and RDF data exports for interoperability

! Java and SQL interfaces to add services


Heuristic for balanced Dialogue Mapping(from Je! Conklin’s book “Dialogue Mapping”, 2003)

Using Compendium for personnelrecovery planning

Example of Conversational Modelling:real time dialogue mapping combined with model driven

templates (AI+IA)

Co-OPR Project (with Austin Tate):http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/co-opr


Mission Briefing: Intent template

Answers to template issuesprovided in the JTFC Briefing.Answers may be constrained

by predefined options, asspecified in the XML schema


Capturing political deliberation/rationale

Dialogue Mapcapturing the

planners’discussion of this

option


Planning Engine input to Compendium

Issues on which the

I-X planning engine

provided candidate

Options


Modelling a document corpus:The Iraq Debate

http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/compendium/iraq


Annotating a document corpus:Chomsky’s article in the Iraq Debate

http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/compendium/iraq

Large scale NASA e-science field trials:

Interoperability with other databases, softwareagents and collaboration tools

www.kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/coakting/nasa

Clancey, W.J., Sierhuis, M., Alena, R., Berrios, D., Dowding, J., Graham, J.S., Tyree, K.S., Hirsh,R.L., Garry, W.B., Semple, A., Buckingham Shum, S.J., Shadbolt, N. and Rupert, S. (2005).“Automating CapCom Using Mobile Agents and Robotic Assistants.” 1st Space ExplorationConference, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 31 Jan-1 Feb, 2005, Orlando,FL. Available from: AIAA Meeting Papers on Disc [CD-ROM]: Reston, VA, and as AdvancedKnowledge Technologies ePrint 375: http://eprints.aktors.org/375

50© Simon Buckingham Shum Image Credits--- Mars: NASA/JPL/MSSS; Earth: NASA/JSC; Composite: MSSS


NASA e-science field trials (2004 and 2005)

Distributed Mars-Earth planning and data analysis toolsfor Mars Habitat field trial in Utah desert, supported from US+UK

www.kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/coakting/nasa


NASA Mobile Agents Architecture


Collaboration Configuration

Scientist(Mars)

Scientist(Earth)

Scientist(Earth)

Scientist(Mars)

Scientist(Earth)

Software AgentArchitecture

(Mars)

Compendium used as a collaboration medium at all intersections:humans+agents, reading+writing maps

RST-telecon-2005-04-11.i.avi00:49:08


NASA testbed:Compendium activity plans for surface exploration, constructed by

scientists on ‘Earth’, interpreted by software agents on ‘Mars’

The Compendium nodes and relationships in this plan were interpreted by Brahms software agents for monitoring

and coordinating astronaut and robot activity during surface explorations.

Copyright, 2004,RIACS/NASA Ames, OpenUniversity, SouthamptonUniversityNot to be used withoutpermission

RST-telecon-2005-04-11.i.avi

1:11:57


CoAKTinG NASA testbed:Compendium science data map, generated by software agents, for

interpretation by Mars+Earth scientists

The Compendium maps were autonomously created and populated with science data by Brahms software agents that use models of the

mission plan, work process, data flow and science data relationships to create the maps.



CoAKTinG NASA testbed:Compendium-based photo analysis by geologists on ‘Mars’

Copyright, 2004,RIACS/NASA Ames,Open University,SouthamptonUniversityNot to be usedwithout permission


NASA testbed:Compendium scientific feedback map from Earth scientists toMars colleagues

Copyright, 2004,RIACS/NASA Ames,Open University,SouthamptonUniversityNot to be usedwithout permission

Using Compendium to mapand automatically index

replayable video conferences

CoAKTinG Project: www.aktors.org/coakting

Memetic Project: www.memetic-vre.net

e-Dance project: kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/e-dance


Collaborative sensemaking in e-Science:Meeting Replay tool for Earth scientists, synchronising

video of Mars crew’s discussion as they annotate their mission plans


NASA MR Clip: 00:50


Memetic Meeting ReplayThe CoAKTinG project’s results are now mainstreamed in the Access

Grid by the JISC Memetic VRE project


Embedding time/location-dependent semanticannotations inside video clips using Compendium

Compendium ‘literacy’?

…understanding how to write, read,talk and think in hypermedia IBIS

…approaches from consultancy in thefield, and video analysis in the lab…


Literacy: significant user community

www.www.CompendiumInstituteCompendiumInstitute.org.org

Literacy: Cognitive task analysis

! Cognitive tasks involved in using a graphicalargumentation scheme (Buckingham Shum 1996)

! A!ordances of graphical DR for coordinatinggroup design (Buckingham Shum et al 1997)


Literacy: the craft skill of IBIS mapping inmeetings: “Dialogue Mapping”

Je! Conklin:CogNexus Institute:www.CogNexus.org


Literacy: expertise analysis(Albert Selvin)

! What is the nature of expert human performance in creatingand modifying real time conceptual structures for groups?

! The NASA knowledge mapper role:

! Listening and interpreting

! Intervening in ‘normal’ conversation flow

! Getting validation for captured material

! Building hypertext representations onthe fly

! Interrelating data and objects

! Adding metadata

! Software-specific skills

Conventionalfacilitationskills

Knowledgemediafacilitationskills

Aesthetic and Ethical Implications of Participatory Hypermedia Practice: First Year Report

Selvin, A. (2005), Technical Report KMI-05-17, Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, UK

Will scientific publishing in 2020 still depend solely on thereading, writing, and discovery of written texts?

What might a more network-centric complement look like?

ScholarlyScholarly

OntologiesOntologies

ProjectProject

•• Web publishing ofWeb publishing of

scholarly claims andscholarly claims and

argumentationargumentation

•• discourse as discourse as semanticsemantic

hypertexthypertext


In Gutenberg’s shadow(or standing on his shoulders)

Philosophical Transactions ofthe Royal Society of LondonMarch 1665

Le Journal des SçavansJanuary 1665

Newspapers + Invisible Colleges = Scholarly Journals


Jumping forward 343 years…

Buckingham Shum, S. (2007). Digital Research Discourse? Computational Thinking Seminar Series, School of Informatics,

University of Edinburgh, 25 Apr. 2007. http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/hyperdiscourse/docs/Simon-Edin-CompThink.pdf


…digital paper!

2007: Ideas are now digital


What if we could get search results like this?…“What is the Turing Debate?”

One of seven maps in the Mapping Great Debates: Can Computers Think? Series.MacroVU Press. www.macrovu.com (Horn, 2003; Yoshimi, 2006)


Horn (zoomed in)

MacroVU Press. www.macrovu.com


Paper: “The Scent of a Site: A System forAnalyzing and Predicting Information Scent,

Usage, and Usability of a Web Site”

“Web User Flow by

Information Scent

(WUFIS)”

Paper: “Informationforaging”

“Information

foraging

theory”

“Information scent

models”

“People try to maximise

their rate of gaining

information”

?

applies

Beyond document citations…

These annotations are freeform summariesof an idea, as one would find in researchers’

journals, fieldnotes, lit. review notes orblog entries

Addressable triple which can be contestede.g. supported/challenged

Method

Theory

Claim

Making formal connectionsbetween ideas creates a

semantic citation network —>novel literature navigation,querying and visualization


Scholarly discourse as CKS…Connecting freeform tags with naturalistic connections (“dialects”)grounded in a formal set of relations (from semiotics and coherence relations)


How to help scholars engage in CKS?Pilot study: paper-based literature modelling

S. Buckingham Shum, V. Uren, G. Li, B. Sereno, and C. Mancini. Computational Modelling of Naturalistic Argumentation in ResearchLiteratures: Representation and Interaction Design Issues. International Journal of Intelligent Systems, 22(1):17–47, 2006


How to help scholars engage in CKS?From paper prototype to semiformal mapping tool

! The ClaiMapper tool

Evaluated in: V. Uren, S. Buckingham Shum, G. Li, and M. Bachler. Sensemaking Tools for Understanding Research Literatures: Design, Implementation andUser Evaluation. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 64(5):420–445, 2006

…to formal argument maps

Starting from paper-based modelling,

move from literature sketches…


How to help scholars engage in CKS?Pilot study: paper-based annotation

Pilot study reported in: B. Sereno, S. Buckingham Shum, and E. Motta. (2005). ClaimSpotter: an Environment to SupportSensemaking with Knowledge Triples. Proc. Int. Conf. Intelligent User Interfaces, pages 199–206, ACM


How to help scholars engage in CKS?! The ClaimSpotter annotation tool: Web 2.0-style tagging with

optional community/system tag recommendations


“Semantic del.icio.us”: KMi’s ClaimSpotter assigning and linking freeform tags

Sereno, B., Buckingham Shum, S. and Motta, E. (2007). Formalization, User Strategy and Interaction Design: Users’ Behaviour with Discourse TaggingSemantics. Workshop on Social and Collaborative Construction of Structured Knowledge, 16th Int. World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2007), Banff, 8-12

May 2007. http://www2007.org/workshops/paper_30.pdf


Interaction Designhow behaviour is shaped by the tool’s a!ordances

! ‘Flip’ left/right tags to match the link type


Visualising claims and arguments

claimfinder.open.ac.uk

When multipleanalysts annotate webdocuments via aserver, they cangenerate a sharedview of how they seethe field, and wherethey agree/disagree


“Semantic Google Scholar” KMi’s ClaimFinder


Semantic Literature Analysis [ClaimFinder expt: 1:59:17]

Problem: “What advantages and disadvantages does CiteSeerhave compared to the ISI citation databases?”

Victoria Uren, Simon Buckingham Shum, Michelle Bachler, Gary Li, (2006) Sensemaking Tools for Understanding Research Literatures:Design, Implementation and User Evaluation. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, Vol.64, 5, (420-445).


“What papers contrast with this paper?”

1. Extract concepts for this document

2. Trace concepts on which they build

3. Trace concepts challenging this set

4. Show root documents


Focusing on a conceptincoming+outgoing links


“Semantic Google Scholar” KMi’s ClaimFinder


Lineage tree (the roots of a concept)


ClaiMaker literacy: searching for negative links

EvalStudy Clip: 00:01:10


Indicators of ClaiMaker literacy?

Victoria Uren, Simon Buckingham Shum, Michelle Bachler, Gary Li, (2006) Sensemaking Tools for Understanding ResearchLiteratures: Design, Implementation and User Evaluation. International Journal of Human Computer Studies, Vol.64, 5, (420-445).


Example: ‘argumentation’ on YouTube

Movie posted by

National Front on

YouTube to

demonstrate their

activities

Buckingham Shum, S. (2007). Undermining Mimetic Contagion on the Net: Argumentation Tools as CriticalVoices. COV&R 2007: Colloquium on Violence & Religion, Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit July, 4-8 2007

http://www.bezinningscentrum.nl/teksten/girard/c/c2007_Buckingham-Shum_Simon_abstract.htm


Example: a “scientific argument” onNational Front website

www.natfront.com/prejudic.html




Mapping thestructure of theNational Front’s“negro intelligence”argument


Refuting the NF “negro intelligence”argument using argument mapping




Importing an Argumentation Scheme asan IBIS template

compendium.open.ac.uk



The structure of an “Argument from

Bias” can be exposed..

The structure of an “Argument from

Analogy” can be exposed..


Template for an

“Argument from

Analogy”




Template for an

“Argument from

Analogy”

Instantiating the

“Argument from

Analogy” template

Cohere: Web 2.0 mapping of Ideas


Ideas as embeddable social objects,overlayed on a social network

http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/sbs/2008/10/science-web2-social-notworking

cohereweb.net


Sensemaking on the Social Web! Connected via the Open U’s SocialLearn API, they could

smoothly exchange important learner-centric data

API

API

API

API


SocialLearn - from 30,000 feet…

SocialLearn

server

and Website

• Identity

• Portfolio

• Activity History

• Social Network

2Learner

manage your

learning goals

Micro

Learner

micro-blog your

thoughts,

learning goals

and resources

Coherecohereweb.net

manage connections

between learning

goals/resources/ideas

International Devpt.examples


Visual software for dialogue andsensemaking

! International Labour Organisation: The UNspecialized agency promoting social justiceand human and labour rights

! Annual Learning Conference to review itsHIV/AIDS in the Workplace Programme

! Compendium was used to capture, integrateand annotate a week’s discussions sharingand debating best practices, creating a visualWeb database


Visual capture of ILO success stories


! World Vision International: global relief anddevelopment agency

! Reviewing its quality control programme throughan international series of workshops

! Compendium was used to classify and connect thekey ideas creating a visual Web database


Visual database of WVI workshopfeedback

Upcoming Testbeds

(candidate KF testbeds?…)


Global Sensemaking network

! www.GlobalSensemaking.net

! Online deliberationtechnology

! Particular focus on climatechange


ESSENCE:E-Science/Sensemaking/Climate Change

! Challenge: bring together deliberation tooldevelopers/researchers* with climate changeexperts

! Engage in meaningful debate

! Reflect on process at f-f conference (Apr 2009)

! Improve how climate science debate is conducted

! www.GlobalSensemaking.net


OLnet:Open Learning Network (proposal under review)

! Challenge: develop a sociotechnical infrastructureto catalyse and sca!old an emergent researchcommunity

! Domain: Open Educ. Resources

! How to nurture social and conceptual networks topool our collective intelligence in a field?

! Go beyond wikis or Freebase

! Layers of evidence in di!erent modalities

! Explicit support for contesting claims

Minds + Hearts


In conclusion…

! YES… we are certainly interested in improving informationmanagement, sharpening critical thinking and promoting soundargumentation

! BUT… these are only part of the story. Those who are engaged inconflict resolution remind us that the key to making true progressis to establish the context for open dialogue in which stakeholderslearn to listen to each other properly, and co-construct newrealities (Isaacs, 1999; Kahane, 2004).

! We need both critical thinking and open listening as we strivecollectively to make sense of, and act on, the complexities andcontroversies now facing us.

Knowledge Federation as Hypermedia Discourse

Technology

Transcript of Knowledge Federation as Hypermedia Discourse