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Towards Web 2.0 ArgumentationSimon Buckingham Shum

Knowledge Media InstituteThe Open UniversityMilton 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 multimediaOpen applications that serve one activity very well

http://37signals.com

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Web 2.0: user experience:simple, engaging multimediaOpen 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 Extensio

n

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