Designing Cooperative Systems: Integrating Artifacts and Conversations

1. COOP2006 7th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, Marseille, May 10, 2006 Cooperative Systems Design: Seamless Integration of Artifacts and Conversations - Enhanced Concepts of Infrastructure for Communication Collaboration: Bad Words and Strong Documents Michael Buckland Summary and powerpoint at www.sims.berkeley.edu/~buckland/COOP2006.html COOP2006, Marseilles

2. All documents are artifacts • but are all artefacts documents? • Conversations use words • but words are problematic. • Three perspectives: • Looking in: Design of cooperative systems. • Looking out: Documents in society • Looking sideways: Words in documentation. COOP2006, Marseilles

3. Documents in society -- Lawyers and law courts use documents as evidence, as proof. -- Educators use documents (textbooks, instructional materials) to teach, to empower and diminish teachers. -- Scientists use documents (articles, offprints) as the archive of achievement and for personal status. -- Media specialists and publicists use documents to persuade. -- Governments use documents to exercise social control. -- Religions use documents for authority and adherence. -- Patriots use documents to commemorate and for loyalty. -- Artists create documents to inspire and to challenge. -- Commerce is based on documented transactions. The transition to reliable digital documents is a major challenge in commerce -- etc., etc. Documents pervade society! COOP2006, Marseilles

4. What is a document? “Tout indice concret ou symbolique, conservé ou enregristré, aux fins de représenter, de reconstituter ou de prouver un phénomène ou physique ou intellectuel.” Suzanne Briet Qu’est-ce que la documentation (1951; English translation 2006). “Any concrete or symbolic indexical sign, preserved or recorded towards the ends of representing, of reconstituting, or of proving a physical or intellectual phenomenon.” Is a star a document? Is a stone in the river a document? Is an antelope a document? A phenomenological, semiotic perspective COOP2006, Marseilles

5. Elements of a document Document -- perceived Document – expressed -- Code, language -- Mode of expression -- Technology Universe of documents COOP2006, Marseilles

6. 1. Phenomenological aspect: Documents are objects perceived as signifying something. The status of being a “document” is not inherent but attributed (given to) an object. Meanings are always constructed by observers. 2. Cultural codes:All forms of expression depend on some some shared understandings, language in a broad sense. Convergence here is cultural convergence or interpretation. Character Status 3. Media Types: Different type of expression have evolved: Texts, images, numbers, diagrams, art … 4. Physical Media: Paper; film; analog magnetic tape; bits;…. Anything perceived as a DOCUMENT (=1) has cultural (2), type (3), and physical (4) aspects. Being digital affects directly only aspect 4. COOP2006, Marseilles

7. Collections of documents need indexing Documentary languages: Subject headings, classification, etc. Indexer is forward-looking: Using words for future use: Briet: “Comme le chien du chasseur – tout à fait en avant, guidé, guidant” (Like a hunting dog, out in front, guided and guiding). Indexer is backward-looking: “About X” necessarily refers to past discussion / dialog / description concerning what is now named X. Indexing is inscribed in a point in time; time continues. So all indexing is necessarily obsolescent. Names and technology: Mention (using this word) is not Meaning (having this sense). . . . and worse! COOP2006, Marseilles

8. Language evolves differently in different social groups COOP2006, Marseilles

9. Dialects and contexts Ludwig Wittgenstein: • Language games: meaning is constituted through activity / language usage (different contexts) • Language regions: language games differ in different language zones (different dialects)  Language is disambiguated within contexts and specialized dialects. COOP2006, Marseilles

10. Words and Documentation: Indexing and searching problem Concept Space Concept Space Match! Text Question Search Statement Document Representation Author Searcher • Mapping between searcher’s words and indexing system terms • Mapping between author’s words and indexing terminology • Mapping between search query and document metadata COOP2006, Marseilles

11. Individuals from different communities need different help Did you mean… Specialty Specialty Search Statement Specialty Specialty Specialty Specialty Term Specialty Term Specialty Term Specialty Term Specialty Specialty Information Collection COOP2006, Marseilles

12. Exploratory Search Interfaces: Medical specialties COOP2006, Marseilles

13. Performance of Search Term Recommender: Ohsumed First 3 suggested: Recall: 26% Precision: 25.6% Recall and precision at 10 cut-off levels for specialty and general search term recommenders (averaged over 33 specialties) in the Ohsumed collection. COOP2006, Marseilles

14. Exploratory search term interfaces in different discourses COOP2006, Marseilles

15. Effect on retrieval of using specialists’ words in Inspec. Four degrees of specialization: Entire data base -- Computers & Control -- Computer Hardware -- Circuits & Devices. COOP2006, Marseilles

16. Exploratory Search Interfaces by Vivien Petras Inspec: Physics, engineering, computing, control http://metadata.sims.berkeley.edu/str/inspec/inspec.html Medline (Ohsumed) http://metadata.sims.berkeley.edu/str/ohsumed/ohsumed.html Acknowledgements: This presentation draws on the work of Robert Fairthorne, Fredric Gey, Ray Larson, Vivien Petras, Patrick Wilson, and others and the support of the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. COOP2006, Marseilles

17. See also: FIDDLES Thank you! http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~buckland/COOP2006.html COOP2006, Marseilles