Strange Aeons
sesquipedalia verba
Simon Wells is an academic researching Argumentation Theory, Automated Reasoning, Intelligent Agents (IA) and MultiAgent Systems (MAS) all approached through a ludic lens.
He is particularly interested in how these tools can be usefully applied to critical literacy, security, gamification, and complex systems.
TwitterEncouraged Commentary
Towards Federating Data in the WWAW
There are a now quite a few argumentation tools, a number of which are online such as ArgDF, Avicenna, MAgtALO. Many of these tools already use, or are planning to offer support for, arguments described using the argument interchange format (AIF). As these individual tools for working with argumentation are deployed they form individual points within an argumentation software ecosystem that I have alluded to before called the World Wide Argumentation Web (WWAW pronounced WOW).
I think that more tools will be developed in the near future that will diversify this ecosystem making it easier to create and work with arguments online. The next step is to begin considering how these individual parts of the WWAW can be joined up to fulfill the networked promise implicit in the WWAW name. This is a question that has been asked before with respect to FOAF. How can/should multiple FOAF data sources be federated?
Rather than suggesting a single means by which all of the AIF data resources are federated I think a healthier argumentation ecosystem would be constructed if there were multiple ways to join up the arguments in the WWAW. For example:
1. Autodiscovery - similar to RSS autodiscovery and FOAF autodiscovery so that an AIF description associated with a web page can be automatically found by applications that understand AIF.
2. Internal AIF Links - Within an AIF document there should be links to other AIF documents that are related. This would support spidering of the WWAW by starting with a source AIF document which links to others, which in turn link to yet more, ad infinitum.
3. Registries - Where links to distributed AIF documents & AIF repositories can be posted by their creators or discoverers.
4. Indexes & Search Engines - Created by search engines to enable AIF documents to be discovered & searched. Indexes work hand in hand with search engines and WWAW spiders to discover AIF documents, and possibly to add further value to them. Currently google should index any AIF document posted onto public web servers but there are also semantic web oriented search engines such as swoogle and indexes like sindice should also work, as well as yet to be developed AIF only search engines and indexes.
5. Repositories - Central locations where AIF documents can be posted and stored. Similar to the AraucariaDB, as of writing the only corpus of analysed argument available online. Analagous to tools like PTSW
I think that whilst there is a manageably small number of individual AIF tools then these federation issues are moot, and once the AIF is as well known and used as FOAF or RSS then again the issue is moot (although it is pertinent with respect to how best to work with the various resources). It is in the middle ground when we are trying to scale up to a wide adoption of structured argumentation on the web that good tools for advertising, linking together, searching, discovering, and adding value to the AIF are particularly important because they mark the difference between a small interchange format used by a minority of enthusiasts, and a widely adopted strategy for adding more value to data on the web.
Research Project Marketplace
I quite often experience two situations. The first is of students who want to find out more about the research that is done in the school, but who cannot identify a way in. The second is that I quite often have small development projects related to research or teaching that I would love to get done but just don't have the time to do myself. One way to deal with both situations would be to make that list of small projects available to the students who could then work on them of their own accord. This might lead to the student identifying an honours project choice earlier than usual, or might provide them with the opportunity to make more progress with their honours project by achieving an actual piece of research. Thus whilst ostensibly being extra-curricular activities, from a pedagogic perspective, there might be the opportunity for the student to gain some form of academic credit from their participation.
The benefits of such an approach are that researchers within the school can get small jobs done for them and could identify potential students to fill summer-job roles. Meanwhile the students have an opportunity to see what research is about whilst creating some software that they can put in their portfolio as a demonstration of their skills when they are looking for jobs at graduation.
There is also a case to be made that such a scheme would prove to be an enabling factor for improving the inclusiveness and social cohesion within the school, giving students who might otherwise be on the periphery an opportunity to get involved.
I would propose that a simple internal web site be used, possibly with a blog architecture, that academics can post project ideas to. Students could then respond to those ideas within the comments and get more information. I envisage a lightweight management model in which the student works mostly independently to solve the problem, unless the academic wishes otherwise, and multiple students could work either collaboratively or independently upon the projects. Some form of source control a la Sourceforge would be useful and release of all code and documentation under the GPL with ownership shared between student and researcher. This means that the student can continue to work on the software after they leave, if they wish, and the researcher can do likewise, forking the project if necessary. By also releasing the code publicly under the GPL then the school also gets to contribute new software to the public good so that the results of, possibly publicly funded, research doesn't get locked away from potential beneficiaries. This is especially important when you consider the amount of research conducted here that is aimed at supporting the elderly, sick, or disabled in their use of computers.
Student Run Computing Services & Societies
- To provide instruction on computing hardware, software and issues surrounding comptuing
- To offer an environmentwhere projects of a technical nature can be implemented and supported
- To facilitate video gaming on all mediums through C&L Gaming
- To offer other entities support of a technical nature, if deemed feasible by GeekSoc's Administration Group
- To offer GeekSoc Members opportunities to visit/attend places/events of a technical nature
- A server enabling any member of the school to easily set up a blog which was served and supported within the school would be both a useful pedagogic and research tool. Researchers could set up new collaboration blogs to support the open notebook culture, or to promote their research without having to set up their own server hardware. Students could keep track of their personal development, personal projects, and academic work in an electronic format. Whilst many students are beginning to do this for their honours projects, and others are required to do this as a part of various undergraduate modules, they are currently relying upon external hosts to provide blogging services or temporary hosts if the blogging activity is a part of a specific module. The school as a whole would benefit from being able to easily set up new blogs without having to deal with infrastructure or rely upon external hosts, and the students would benefit from an easy way to promote themselves and their work.
- Just having a LAMP server within the school would be an advantage. Much of the school is geared towards the Microsoft way of doing computing, but gaining a wider understanding of the software ecosystem would be advantageous to our student endeavour s.
- Alumni email has been discussed often in the past. When I first graduated here there was talk of enabling graduate computing students to keep their @computing.dundee.ac.uk addresses. We are only talking of around 20-30 addresses each year but this would be a great way to keep the alumni feeling as though they are still a part of the school. If we look to the American model of university funding, where a great deal of money comes from successful alumni, then maintaining that contact with our alumni seems like a potentially very valuable for little initial outlay.
Open Science & Open Notebooks
