This page aims to link together researchers and practitioners who are exploring the potential of Computer-Supported Collaborative Argumentation (CSCA) to support knowledge work. Please inform me if you have or know of other relevant material - tools, methods, notations, applications . . .
The flavour here is slightly different from work on argumentation in other fields, which focus on artificial intelligence, expert systems, formal models of reasoning, or the philosophy of argument. In CSCA, we're interested in mapping arguments as a cognitively or interactionally beneficial process (individually or collectively). The computer as tool is to help reflect back the emerging structure of the problem, with relatively little computational 'intelligence' possible because the domain is poorly understood. However(!), stronger and mutually beneficial links could no doubt be forged with other 'parallel worlds' to us, and I welcome new links.
(I tend also to update this page very sporadically!)
| The world is full of "wicked problems." Agreeing on what the real problem is requires extensive discussion, as does agreeing on what might constitute a solution. This should ring bells for managers, engineers, lawyers, scientists, policy strategists...
Research into techniques and tools to support argumentation has some important contributions to make in understanding and facilitating these processes. By argumentation, I mean at its simplest, discourse for persuasion. The precise form which this takes depends on the demands of the particular field and context of use. CSCA is relevant not only to professionals tackling applied problems, but to scientists and scholars debating theroretical and research issues. Philosophy, Science, the Arts and Humanities involve the construction of perspectives and discourses -- debates and argumentation about the nature of problems, the merits of different approaches to answering them, and so forth. Scholarly peer review in journals is a particularly established form of author-reviewer argumentation. Finally, we need to train students to think critically, to understand the different kinds of argument that are used in different fields, and to reflect and debate the strengths and weaknesses of material. Hypertext, ontologies, the Web, Java, XML, RDF, and groupware are converging to provide technical infrastructures. But the devil lies in the detail -- specifically, the human detail. A decade's research by the hypertext and CSCW communities shows that it is hard to integrate CSCA tools into the cognitive and discursive flow of work. People often resist having to make their reasoning explicit (for all sorts of reasons, but one being that it's just plain hard cognitively). How can we devise representations and user interfaces that make this easier? |
"Wicked problems"In the 1970s, Rittel characterised what he called 'wicked problems.' In contrast to 'tame problems', these are characterised by a number of properties which make them particularly slippery, resisting analysis in top down, methodological ways as required by many problem modelling and analysis techniques (e.g. in software design):
IBIS (Issue-Based Information Systems) was a method developed by Rittel as a language, and a graphical representation, of the debate and negotiation which is central to the process of tackling wicked problems. Rittel's analysis and the development of IBIS were pioneering. However, IBIS is not of course the only notational scheme for graphical argumentation. Depending on the domain and context of use, it has a number of limitations which others have sought to address. Pointers to work on argumentation-based approaches are provided below. Graphical argumentation is finding application in a wide spectrum of domains which confront wicked problems par excellence, such as:
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"The Soft Bicycle Company has developed organizational memory software called QuestMap that overcomes the barriers to capturing informal knowledge. The key component of QuestMap is the use of a display system--much like an on-line whiteboard--that captures the key issues and ideas during meetings and creates shared understanding in a knowledge team. All the messages, documents, and reference material for a project can be placed on the "whiteboard," and the relationships between them can be graphically displayed. Users end up with a "map" that shows a history of the on-line conversations that led up to key decisions and plans. QuestMap is being used by major corporations for strategic planning, environmental planning, business process reengineering, and new product design."Platform: Windows 3.1 / 95 / NT (hypertext groupware or standalone)
Enquiries to: info@softbicycle.com, The Soft Bicycle Company, Inc., 1000 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW, Suite 100, Washington, DC 20007, U.S.A.
(QuestMap was developed from the gIBIS hypertext design tool at MCC)
"Design is a process that involves numerous technical disciplines. Managing and integrating the creative components of this complex collaborative activity is a major problem for industry. A support tool is required that can record the decisions made throughout the design process and more importantly why they were made.Control, management and access to organised corporate information has major commercial implications for industrial plant efficiency and operational safety.
In response to this need QuantiSci is developing DRAMA. "DRAMA is a tool for recording rationale for engineering design." It is a software tool that will maximise the re-use of corporate knowledge and memory. Thus new designs will extract maximum value from existing designs, maintain production safety and minimise operational failures."It is a multi-user computer-based system supporting process design and operation."
Platforms: Windows 95 / NT
Enquiries to: Andy Brice, QuantiSci Ltd., Chiltern house, 45 Station Road, Henley,Oxfordshire, RG9 1AT, U.K. Fax:+44 1491 576916
A toolkit for supporting structured annotation and debate about an HTML document. Transforms an HTML file into an interactive discussion site, with customisable comment types to whatever argumentation scheme you want.Platforms: Java application runs on Windows and Unix. Web discussion systems run on Windows and Unix servers. Generates a web document/discussion interface.
Enquiries to: Simon Buckingham Shum, Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, UK
"Belvedere is software for constructing and reflecting on diagrams of one's ideas, such as evidence maps and concept maps. Belvedere is designed to help support problem-based collaborative learning scenarios in which middle-school and high-school students learn critical inquiry skills that they can apply in everyday life as well as in science."Platforms: "Belvedere 2.1 is our Java-based software for constructing inquiry diagrams (a.k.a. "evidence maps") and other graphical representations of one's ideas. The most recent public release was June 12, 1998. An applet version is coming soon."
Enquiries to: Dan Suthers, Advanced Cognitive Tools for Learning Project, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, 3939 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh PA 15260, USA. Tel. +1 412-624-7046, Fax. +1 412-624-9149 (attn: Advlearn, 5th floor)
"The Zeno system is a Shared Workspace and Mediation System based on open World Wide Web and other Internet standards and protocols. It enables cross-platform and cross-organisational cooperation by supporting the administration of users, user groups, access rights, shared documents and folders, agendas, notification services, and an issue-based discussion forum and conferencing system. Development of the Zeno system has been partly sponsored by the European Commission, in the GeoMed project. A commercial version of the Zeno system is available from Dialogis, a GMD spin-off company."Platforms: The Zeno system is a Java application for the World Wide Web
Enquiries to: Dr. Thomas F. Gordon , German National Research Center for Information Technology, AiS - Institute for Autonmous Intelligent Systems, Schloss Birlinghoven, Sankt-Augustin, D-53754 Germany. tel: +49 2241 14 2665, fax: +49 2241 14 2072, email: thomas.gordon@gmd.de
"I have developed several experimental systems for automated argument-assistance. Argument-assistance systems are aids to draft and generate arguments, e.g., by
- administering and supervising the argument process,
- keeping track of the issues that are raised and the assumptions that are made,
- keeping track of the reasons adduced, the conclusions drawn, and the counterarguments that have been adduced,
- evaluating the justification status of the statements made, and
- checking whether the users of the system obey the pertaining rules of argument."
Platforms: 3 systems: Argue!, ArguMed 1.0 and 2.0: all for Win95
Enquiries to: Bart Verheij, Department of Metajuridica, Faculty of Law, Universiteit Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands