Gardening in a knowledge federation. Slides presented at Knowledge Federation 2008.

1. Gardening in a Knowledge Federation Jack Park SRI International, Menlo Park, California And Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K. Knowledge Federation 2008 Dubrovnik, Croatia 20-22 October, 2008 Image copyright Paul Bourke and Gayla Chandler used with permission. http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/

2. “ We are what we eat, and we think what we practice.” Geoffrey C. Bowker, Memory Practices in the Sciences , p. 229 Let’s talk about practice

3. Collective Sensemaking Knowledge Gardening Blooming and buzzing ideas that need collection, deliberation, and organization

4. Knowledge gardening is… Collaborative problem solving in rugged fitness landscapes Images: http://www.turbophoto.com/Free-Stock-Images/ Focusing on details and working together Understanding big pictures

7. Knowledge Gardening as Federated Human Knowledge Subject Domains Related to Global Issues Learning Cultures Politics History Religion Simulation Wellness Nutrition Addictions Aging Cancer Knowledge Garden

20. Joe’s Web Query

21. Joe’s Selected Web Page

22. Joe’s Thoughts “ Thus, if a bacterial infection occurs …, macrophages will produce reactive oxygen to counteract the infection…” Reactive oxygen also known as “free radicals” Important idea

23. Joe’s Gardening Activities Immune Response Bacterial Infection Macrophage Free Radical Reactive Oxygen macrophages use free radicals to kill bacteria Bookmark page with these tags Annotate page with this idea

24. Joe’s State of Mind Learn something new every day. Gotta remember that for the test.

26. Sarah’s Web Query

27. Sarah’s Selected Web Page

28. Sarah’s Thoughts “ Antioxidants are molecules which can safely interact with free radicals and terminate the chain reaction before vital molecules are damaged” Important idea

29. Sarah’s Gardening Activities Antioxidant Free Radical Bookmark page with these tags antioxidants kill free radicals Annotate page with this idea

30. Sarah’s State of Mind Spiffy! I’ll just take lots of antioxidant supplements.

34. “ Free Radical” Tag macrophages use free radicals to kill bacteria antioxidants kill free radicals Tag view restricted to ideas related to the tag. Two somewhat conflicting ideas are now in view. Free Radical Example of tags used as associative indexes into information resources

35. Angel’s State of Mind ¡Ay, caramba! What’s this all about? Sounds like I should not take any more antioxidant pills! Need to say something about that in the Garden

36. Angel’s Gardening Activity antioxidants kill free radicals Must Avoid macrophages use free radicals to kill bacteria Add a new Connection between the two ideas A “Black Swan” event resulted in a discovery .

39. Olivia’s State of Mind antioxidants kill free radicals Must Avoid macrophages use free radicals to kill bacteria Need to restate this information “ Must Avoid” doesn’t really convey a proper sense of reality

40. Olivia’s Gardening Activity antioxidants kill free radicals Contraindicates macrophages use free radicals to kill bacteria Bacterial Infection Antioxidants Because Create a new set of representations by connecting the two core concepts and explaining the connection Olivia gets bonus points for justifying her assertion.

43. More Gardening Activities Contraindicates Bacterial Infection Antioxidants Someone starts a dialogue about the new connection Assertions made in a knowledge garden can be contested. Here is an instance of the Contraindicates connection being contested.

44. The Dialogue Begins A naïve response A thoughtful response but needs elaboration

45. Following the Dialogue “ Compromised host” as a new concept to be represented in the garden “ Compromised host” also known as “Immunocompromised host”

46. Further Gardening Activities antioxidants kill free radicals Contraindicates macrophages use free radicals to kill bacteria Bacterial Infection Antioxidants Because Appropriate For Compromised Host

50. Finding Structure in Stories After Jeff Conklin: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v =pxS5wUljfjE Teasing structure out of linear text

51. Example: An OpEd

52. Issue Map of an OpEd

53. Subjects Entailed by a node in the OpEd We read the OpEd issue map and imagine a range of subjects covered in the OpEd. We imagine many ways in which those subjects relate to each other. Topic mapping helps us discover and represent those subjects and relationships. A node in the issue map

54. A Federation Architecture

55. TopicSpaces Architecture

56. Tagging and Annotating Bookmarking with Tagomizer facilitates Tagging and Annotating. An annotation is fully addressable, editable, and can be tagged or annotated.

57. Connecting with Cohere

58. Dialogue with DebateGraph

59. GENIS: GEN + GEIS + Other Stakeholders GEN Members: Energy-related experts GEIS Other Stakeholders Contributes To Supports Supports Maintains

60. A Social CMS Garden Portal

61. Web Services to TopicSpaces

64. Questions? [email_address]