The Concept Browser

3. The Concept Browser a new form of knowledge management tool Ambjörn Naeve amb@nada.kth.se http://kmr.nada.kth.se

4. Centre for user-oriented IT-Design (CID) CID is a competence centre at KTH that provides an interdisciplinary environment for applied research on design of human-computer interaction. CID is engaged in 4 different areas of research: • Connected Communities (Digital Worlds). • Interactive Learning Environments. • New forms of Interaction. • User orientation.

5. Dictionary of terms • Thing = phenomenon or entity. • Concept = representation of some thing. • Mental concept = inner representation. • Medial concept = communicable representation. • Context = graph with concepts as nodes and concept-relations as arcs • Context map = graphic representation of a context. • Content component = information linked to a concept or concept-relation. • Resource = concept or concept-relation or context or content.

6. Problems with paper-based information systems They freeze their concepts into a single context, which • does not allow reuse of content in different contexts. • makes it hard to navigate the information landscape (context) and present its content in a personalized way.

7. Problems with hyper-linked information systems A concept generally appearsin many different (and changing) contexts This makes it hard to maintain a clear separation of context and content. Example: the well-known ”web-surfing sickness”: Within what context am I viewing this content, and how did I get here?

8. Context Content Geometry Algebraic What How Differential Surf Where V iew When Projective Info Who Conceptual Browsing: Viewing the content

9. Depth Contextualize Clarification Context Content Mathematics Magic What Mathematics Surf Religion Ho w V iew Where Philosophy Inf o When Science Who Viewing content: Where is mathematics done? inspire invoke illustrate apply

10. Depth Contextualize Clarification Context Content inspire inspire Science Mathematics Mathematics Magic Magic invoke invoke * * logical conclusion A is true B is true illustrate illustrate Religion Religion ¯ ¯ apply apply Surf If A w ere true Philosophy Philosophy ¯ then ¯ V iew What B w ould be true Inf o Science Science * Ho w conditional statement Where Mathematics * experiment When Who How is mathematics applied to science? assumption Þ fact Falsification of assumptions by falsification of their logical conclusions

11. Design principles for Concept Browsers • separate context(= relationships) from content. • describe each context in terms of a context map, preferably expressed in UML. • allow neighborhood-based contextual navigation on each concept and concept-relation by enabling the direct switch from its presently displayed context into anyone of its contextual neighborhoods. • assign an appropriate set of resources as the content of a concept or a conceptual relation.

12. Design principles for Concept Browsers (cont.) • label each resource by making use of a standardized data description (metadata) scheme. • allow metadata-based filtering of the content components through context-dependent aspect-filters. • allow the transformation of a content component which is also a context map into a context by contextualizing it. • allow concepts as well as contexts to be interactively constructed from content according to different content-gathering principles

13. Conzilla - a first prototype of concept browser

14. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-1

15. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-2

16. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-3

17. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-4

18. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-5

19. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-6

20. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-7

21. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-8

22. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-9

23. Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium-10

24. that that Specialization of Instance of that that this Part of Context for Type for Gener alization of that that The hierarchical directions from this to that Unified Language Modeling

25. Vehicle Car :Car Wheel :Wheel Unified Language Modeling is a kind of akind of abstraction of kind of is a a hasa has is apart ofa part of is a a

26. Dictionary of terms (cont.) • Contextual neighborhood (of a concept or a concept-relation) = context containing the concept or concept-relation. • Isolated concept = concept which has no contextual neighborhood involving other concepts. • Contextual topology (on a set of concepts S) = the collection of all contextual neighborhoods for all concepts from S. • Discrete (totally disconnected) contextual topology = contextual topology where each contextual neighborhood consists of an isolated concept.

27. Existing contextual topologies • Traditionaldictionary • totally disconnected fixed contextual topology. • Traditional textbook • taxonomically connected fixed contextual topology. • Traditional web browser • reachability-connected dynamic contextual topology. • inextricable mixture of context and content.

28. References • Naeve, A.,The Garden of Knowledge as a Knowledge Manifold - a conceptual framework for computer supported subjective education, CID-17, KTH, 1997. • Naeve, A.,Conceptual Navigation and Multiple Scale Narration in a Knowledge Manifold, CID-52, KTH, 1999. • Nilsson, M. & Palmér M.,Conzilla - Towards a Concept Browser, (CID-53), KTH, 1999. • Nilsson, M., The Conzilla design - the definitive reference, CID/NADAKTH, 2000. • Naeve, A., The Concept Browser, a New Form of Knowledge Management Tool, Proc. of the 2:nd european conference on Web Based Learning Environments (WBLE-2001), Lund, Sweden, Oct. 24-26, 2001.

29. References (cont.) • Naeve, A., The Knowledge Manifold – an educational architecture that supports inquiry based customizable forms of e-learning, WBLE-2001. • Naeve, A. & Nilsson, M. & Palmér, M., The Conceptual Web - Our Research Vision, Proceedings of the First Semantic Web Working Symposium, Stanford, July 30 - Aug 2, 2001. • Naeve, A. & Nilsson, M. & Palmér, M., E-learning in the Semantic Age, WBLE-2001. [ Reports are available in pdf at http://kmr.nada.kth.se ]