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Towards Web 2.0 Argumentation Simon Buckingham Shum Knowledge Media Institute The Open University Milton Keynes, UK
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/sbs
Proc. 2nd International Conference on Computational Models of Argument, Toulouse, May 2008
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 License
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Overview
The Web 2.0 phenomenon
Key aspects for COMMA end-user tools
Web argumentation state of the art
Cohere
Limitations and future work
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The dizzy world of “Web 2.0”
http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/wp-content/uploads/shop/EBY_FooBar_35t.png
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Defining “Web 2.0”
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Web 2.0: user experience: simple, engaging multimedia
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Web 2.0: user experience: simple, engaging multimedia Open applications that serve one activity very well
http://37signals.com
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Web 2.0: user experience: simple, engaging multimedia Open applications that serve one activity very well
http://rememberthemilk.com
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Web 2.0: social networks, media sharing, and mass collaboration
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Web 2.0: social networks, media sharing, and mass collaboration
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Web 2.0: information structuring: emergent, not predefined, semantics
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Web 2.0: information structuring: emergent, not predefined, semantics Tagclouds: simple visualization of keywords by popularity,
reflecting emergent community “folksonomy”
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Web 2.0: information structuring: emergent, not predefined, semantics Wikis: designed to enable a community to add structure as and
when they need, not be locked into a set of predefined forms
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Web 2.0: interoperability, mashups, embedded content
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Web 2.0: interoperability, mashups, embedded content
RSS as data exchange lingua franca
easily embeddable media helps them spread virally
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/launch_anim_slavery.shtml
APIs enable data mashups + services
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The bottom line:
The bar has been raised for the Web user and
developer experience
Are COMMA tools up to the challenge?
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Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
Debatepedia — a wiki structured into arguments for and against a question
http://wiki.idebate.org
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Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
TruthMapping — distinguishes unsupported premises from evidenced claims
http://truthmapping.com
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Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
DebateGraph — an IBIS-based tool providing a structured outline view
http://debategraph.net
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Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
CoPe_it! —IBIS-based tool providing threads, maps and decision-support http://copeit.cti.gr/site
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Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
ClaiMaker/ClaimFinder — semantic annotation and search of scholarly literature
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/scholonto
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Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
ArgDF — first platform implementing AIF in RDF
http://argdf.org
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Conclusion: there are currently no “Web 2.0” argumentation tools
There are no tools satisfying all of the following criteria:
Provide an engaging, “walk up and use” interface
Make it easy to link to, and embed argumentation in other websites (like a YouTube movie)
Enable end-user definition of the semantics
Promote networking between participants
Provide an open architecture with API services
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Cohere is introduced not as an argumentation tool, but as a tool for making meaningful connections between ideas.
Argumentation is just one possible application that some users may want to pursue
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Cohere homepage: people + ideas + connections
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Cohere: creating a new Idea for Google’s “Knol”, linked to a website
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Cohere: embedding an Idea or Map in another website (a blog post)
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Cohere: raising issues about Google’s “Knol” Idea
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Cohere: from tag clouds to idea webs
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Ideas may be assigned a Role in the context of a given connection your assumption may be my
problem… my claim may be your
evidence… The default Idea role can be
specialized to one of the preset examples or user-defined
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Cohere: extensible connection language doesn’t lock users into one ontology, except to classify connections as positive, neutral or negative to assist subsequent filtering
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Expanding the neutral and negative connection menus
default connection labels are listed first
user-defined connections can be appended
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Cohere: all incoming and outgoing links from a focal Idea
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Cohere: Argument from Expert Opinion with Critical Questions (from Walton & Reed)
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Cohere: semantically filtering a focal Idea by “contrasting” connections
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Cohere: semantically filtering a focal Idea by “contrasting” connections
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Cohere: a mashup visualization merging different connections around a common Idea
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Cohere usage statistics
We are logging a range of statistics — yet to be analysed, e.g.
Approx 1-3 new users/day register, consistent for last few months
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Cohere usage statistics (cont/d)
manually created in Cohere
Imported into Cohere from Compendium
RSS feeds from del.icio.us
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Limitations, and future work
Interface not responsive on all platforms (Windows is currently best) or with large datasets moving from Java to Flash visualizations
re-architecting the interface to be more efficient
Usability trials have shown weaknesses now being tackled in a new version of the user
interface
Much requested user-groups management added to strengthen the social/collaboration dimension
Cohere not currently an open platform v2 has a RESTful services API enabling data read
/write through URLs
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Database (MySQL)
Cohere v1 (the current public release) is a closed application
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Database (MySQL)
Application (PHP)
API (REST services)
Other Services
Other Applications
Firefox Extension
Cohere v2 is an open data platform + API providing REST services
User Interface
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Limitations, and future work (cont/d)
RDF import/export now working (+ basic AIF) RSS feeds to be added New mashup possibilities
arguments merged with GIS (GoogleMaps)
or timelines (Simile), etc
An open platform for COMMA researchers? add your own user interfaces and reasoning
services…
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Thank You! Resources…
Cohere: cohereweb.net
Cohere blog: kmi.open.ac.uk/technologies/cohere
Hypermedia Discourse research: kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/hyperdiscourse