Building%20Collaborative%20Knowledge%20Representations%20in%20Real%20Time

1
Building Collaborative Knowledge Representations
in Real Time

• An Analysis of Facilitative Micro-ActionsInterim
  Progress ReportAl Selvin
•  

2
Agenda

• Goals
• Research questions
• Context
• Method of analysis
• Results to date
• Summary and next steps

3
The Vision Thing
Bring together the technical side of knowledge
engineering with performative and creative
aspects from the arts and humanities. Bring the
benefits and capabilities of artistry to the
practice of creating semi-formal knowledge
representations with groups in real time.
4
More Vision

• The consequences of this union can be to address
  some long-standing problems in knowledge
  technology
• Effective long-term organizational memory
• Overcoming the capture bottleneck
• Enabling knowledge codification and formalization
  on the fly
• Value Now and Value Later

5
Goals

• Expanding the use, and usefulness, of
  collaborative knowledge media
• Overcoming obstacles to adoption
• Understanding aesthetic and ethical issues in the
  use of such technologies for groups and teams

6
Research questions

• What is expert human performance in creating and
  modifying knowledge representations for groups,
  on the fly
• Develop a descriptive vocabulary of sufficient
  granularity and nuance
• What skills are actually used by expert
  practitioners
• How can an understanding of the above contribute
  to identifying
• Needed skills
• Training methods
• Improved software support
• Increased adoption

7
Context for this analysis

• NASA Mobile Agents field trial
• Supporting RST scientists distributed in multiple
  locations in
• Analyzing incoming science data
• Formulating recommendations to the hab crew re
  specific goals, objectives, and tasks
• Improving RST/crew processes in general, and
• Understanding and improving the role of
  collaboration software tools and strategies in
  particular
• Before, during, and after team meetings/telecons
  (SOWGs)

8
Roles and responsibilities

• RST members
• Review materials beforehand
• Prepare analyses
• Participate in RST telecons
• RST lead
• Chair the telecons
• Crew uplink lead
• Create knowledge representations
• Publish materials from crew sessions
• Crew members
• Participate in crew sessions
• Create knowledge representations (using
  Compendium)
• Meeting Replay team
• Create web-based videos of crew sessions
  integrated with Compendium knowledge
  representations
• Science Organizer team
• Integrate and maintain SO repository of science
  data

9
Roles and responsibilities

• RST facilitator
• Gather, prepare, and publish materials before RST
  meetings
• From Science Organizer, Meeting Replay, Crew
  Compendium exports, RST analyses, emails, and
  other resources
• Arrange telecon/web conferences
• Convene sessions
• Assist in locating and analyzing science data
• Capture discussion and decisions during the
  sessions
• Assist RST with software/tool issues
• Build and modify Compendium knowledge
  representation on the fly
• Retrieve materials from other tools and
  repositories and integrate them into the
  knowledge representation
• Create summary materials at the conclusion of
  each session
• Publish the materials to the web and other
  repositories

10
Configuration
11
(No Transcript)
12
11m31s
Listening to the participants, creating nodes,
choosing node types, typingsummary comments and
observations
13
11m58s
Capturing deliberation in nodes
14
12m40s
Creating logical containers and drawing
semantic links betweenconcepts
15
26m23s
Adding annotations
16
36m22s
Tagging key nodes with metadatato aid later
recall and reuse
17
121m04s
Working with the RST to locate, analyze,
cross-reference, and raise issues about the
science data
18
128m59s
Create final maps for web export, harvesting
nodes from earlier in the session and mapping
them onto pre-made templates of summary questions
19
Example
20
Expertise required

• To perform RST Facilitator role
• Listening and interpreting
• Intervening in normal conversation flow
• Getting validation for captured material
• Building hypertext representations on the fly
• Interrelating data and objects
• Adding metadata
• Software-specific skills

Conventionalfacilitationskills
Knowledgemediafacilitationskills
21
Analysis method

• Grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin)
• Close analysis of a session, paying special
  attention to
• Participant statements
• Practitioner actions
• Practitioner statements
• Compendium moves
• Building up explanatory concepts, categories, and
  properties
• Focus on the engagement of both practitioner and
  participants with the Compendium representation

22
Emerging categories and concepts

• Participant map engagement
• The way in which participants relate to the
  current move
• 4 types, 3 subtypes
• Active (Text, Structure, Navigation)
• Direct
• Partial/Unclear
• Delinked

23
Emerging categories and concepts

• Compendium moves
• 50 types, 44 subtypes
• 646 individual moves in the analyzed session

24
Emerging categories and concepts

• Practitioner verbal moves
• 5 types
• Statement/Announcement
• Acknowledgement
• Query
• Helpful Comment
• Exclamation
• 146 individual moves in the analyzed session

25
Emerging categories and concepts

• Activity types
• 13 types, 9 subtypes
• The primary type ofactivity the practitioneris
  engaged in
• Can be as short as onemove or span many minutes

26
Emerging categories and concepts

• Practitioner stances
• The position of the practitioner with regard to
  the current activity
• 5 types
• Knowledge Navigator
• Facilitator
• Participant
• Technical Expert
• Editor

27
Emerging categories and concepts

• Compound moves
• Collections of individual moves that accomplish a
  simple action (e.g. navigating to a map, copying
  a node, navigating back to another and pasting
  it)
• Mini-projects
• Sequences of moves that accomplish a more
  complicated action with a clear goal
• Ive not yet created types of compound moves or
  mini-projects

28
Emerging categories and concepts

• Practitioner response/engagement mode
• The way in which the practitioner is engaging
  with the participants, on a move-by-move level
• 4 types
• Delinked
• Indirect
• Semi-direct
• Direct

29
Emerging categories and concepts

• Focus of moves
• The objects with which the practitioner is
  engaging in a move
• Can be multiple
• 6 types
• Participants
• Maps
• Text
• Subject matter
• Surroundings
• Process

30
Emerging categories and concepts

• Notes
• Field notes, observations or commentary about
  particular moves, mini-projects, statements, or
  episodes
• Themes
• The stories that the participants and
  practitioner weave around the ostensible agenda
  items and formal discussion
• In this session, 8 principal themes

31
Analysis spreadsheet
32
Analysis spreadsheet
Activity types andpractitionerstance
Practitioneractions
Compendiummoves
Timestamp
Participantstatements
Practitionerstatements
Participantmap engagement
33
Analysis spreadsheet
Engagementmode
Compoundmoves
Mini-projects
34
Analysis spreadsheet
Fieldnotes
Focustargets
Themes / stories
35
Results to date Practitioner stance
36
Results to date Activity types
37
Results to date Focus of practitioner moves
38
Results to date Participant map engagement
39
Results to date Practitioner engagement mode
40
Results to date Practitioner verbal moves
41
Summary

• Beginning to feel that it is possible to
  construct a useful descriptive vocabulary beyond
  the usual glosses (discussion capture meeting
  facilitation etc.)
• Categories and concepts in an early stage of
  development
• Need better ways to visualize results
• Eager to apply the preliminary framework to other
  settings and practitioners

42
Next steps

• Continue to refine the descriptive framework
• Analyze Meeting Replay session of hab crew
  facilitation
• Analyze working session between two skilled
  practitioners
• Seek out green field locale