Slides accompanying the paper: Buckingham Shum, Simon (2008). Cohere: Towards Web 2.0 Argumentation. In: Proc. COMMA'08: 2nd International Conference on Computational Models of Argument, 28-30 May 2008, Toulouse, France. Preprint: http://oro.open.ac.uk/10421

1. Proc. 2nd International Conference on Computational
Models of Argument, Toulouse, May 2008
Towards Web 2.0
Argumentation
Simon Buckingham Shum
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University
Milton Keynes, UK
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/sbs
Licensed under Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 License
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2. 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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3. The dizzy world of “Web 2.0”
http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/wp-content/uploads/shop/EBY_FooBar_35t.png 3

4. Defining “Web 2.0”
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5. Web 2.0: user experience:
simple, engaging multimedia
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6. Web 2.0: user experience:
simple, engaging multimedia
Open applications that serve one activity very well
http://37signals.com
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7. Web 2.0: user experience:
simple, engaging multimedia
Open applications that serve one activity very well
http://rememberthemilk.com
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8. Web 2.0: social networks, media
sharing, and mass collaboration
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9. Web 2.0: social networks, media
sharing, and mass collaboration
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10. Web 2.0: information structuring:
emergent, not predefined, semantics
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11. Web 2.0: information structuring:
emergent, not predefined, semantics
 Tagclouds: simple visualization of keywords by popularity,
reflecting emergent community “folksonomy”
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12. 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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13. Web 2.0: interoperability, mashups,
embedded content
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14. Web 2.0: interoperability, mashups,
embedded content
RSS as data exchange
lingua franca
APIs enable data mashups + services
easily embeddable media
helps them spread virally
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/launch_anim_slavery.shtml
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15. 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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16. 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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17. Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
 TruthMapping — distinguishes unsupported premises from evidenced claims
 http://truthmapping.com
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18. Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
 DebateGraph — an IBIS-based tool providing a structured outline view
 http://debategraph.net
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19. 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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20. 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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21. Web-based Argumentation: state of the art
 ArgDF — first platform implementing AIF in RDF
 http://argdf.org
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22. 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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23. 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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24. Cohere homepage:
people + ideas + connections
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25. Cohere: creating a new Idea for
Google’s “Knol”, linked to a website
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26. Cohere: embedding an Idea or Map in
another website (a blog post)
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27. Cohere: raising issues about Google’s
“Knol” Idea
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28. Cohere: from tag clouds to idea webs
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29. 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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30. 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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31. Expanding the
neutral and negative
connection menus
default connection
labels are listed first
user-defined
connections can be
appended
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32. Cohere: all incoming and outgoing
links from a focal Idea
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33. Cohere: Argument from Expert Opinion
with Critical Questions (from Walton & Reed)
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34. Cohere: semantically filtering a focal
Idea by “contrasting” connections
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35. Cohere: semantically filtering a focal
Idea by “contrasting” connections
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36. Cohere: a mashup visualization merging
different connections around a common
Idea
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37. 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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38. Cohere
usage
statistics
(cont/d)
manually created
in Cohere
Imported into
Cohere from
Compendium
RSS feeds from
del.icio.us 38

39. 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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40. Cohere v1 (the current public release)
is a closed application
Database
(MySQL)
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41. Cohere v2 is an open data platform +
API providing REST services
Firefox Other
Extension Services
Other
User Interface Applications
API (REST services)
Application (PHP)
Database
(MySQL)
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42. 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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43. Thank You!
Resources…
 Cohere:
cohereweb.net
 Cohere blog:
kmi.open.ac.uk/technologies/cohere
 Hypermedia Discourse research:
kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/hyperdiscourse
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