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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