The Concept Browser

web-site: http://kmr.nada.kth.se

Speaker: Ambjörn Naeve

a new form of knowledge management tool

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.

Dictionary of terms

• Thing = phenomenon or entity.

• Mental concept = inner representation.

• Concept = representation of some thing.

• 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.

Problems with paper-based information systems

They freeze their concepts into a single context, which

• makes it hard to navigate the information landscape (context) and present its content in a personalized way.

• does not allow reuse of content in different contexts.

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?

Dictionary of terms (cont)

• Contextual neighborhood (of a concept or a concept-relation) = context containing the concept or concept-relation.

• Contextual topology (on a set of concepts S) = the collection of all contextual neighborhoods for all concepts from S.

• Isolated concept = concept which has no contextual neighborhood involving other concepts.

• Discrete (totally disconnected) contextual topology = contextual topology where each contextual neighborhood consists of an isolated concept.

Existing contextual topologies

• Traditional dictionary • 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.

calibrationprocess

P

Modeling for Conceptual Calibration

Adam Eve

Adam’s image of P Eve’s image of P

this

Generalization of

that

Context for that

Specialization of

that

Part of that

Instance of

that

that

Type for

The hierarchical directions from this to that

UnifiedLanguageModeling

Car

Vehicle

is a:Car

kind of

is a kind of

a

Unified Language Modeling

:Wheel Wheel

abstraction of

part of has

is a

a

is a part of ahas a

a kind of

Context Content

Conceptual Browsing: Viewing the content

Projective

Geometry

Algebraic

Differential Surf

View

Info

What

How

Where

When

Who

Projective geometry is the studyof the incidencesof points, lines

in space.

It could be calledthe geometryof the eye

and planes

Surf

View

Info

What

How

Where

When

Who

Mathematics

Viewing content: Where is mathematics done?

Content

Clarification

Depth

Context

Science

Magic

Religion

Philosophy

Mathematicsinvoke

illustrateapply

inspire

Contextualize

How is mathematics applied to science?

Content

Surf

View

InfoWhat

How

Where

When

Who

Magic

Philosophy

Religion

Science

Mathematicsinvoke

illustrateapply

inspire

Clarification

DepthContextualize

Context

A is true

Science

assumption

conditional statement

logical conclusion

B is true

If A were truethen

B would be true

Mathematics

Falsification of assumptionsby falsification of their logical conclusions

experiment

fact

Science

Magic

Religion

Philosophy

Mathematicsinvoke

illustrateapply

inspire

Design principles for Concept Browsers

• separate context (= relationships) from content.

• describe each context in terms of a context map, preferably expressed in UML.

• assign an appropriate set of resources as the content of a concept or a conceptual relation.

• 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.

Design principles for Concept Browsers (cont)

• allow metadata-based filtering of the content components through context-dependent aspect-filters.

• label each resource by making use of a standardized data description (metadata) scheme.

• allow the transformation of a content component which is also a context map into a context by contextualizing it.

• allows concepts as well as contexts to be interactively constructed from content according to different content-gathering principles

Conzilla - a first prototype of Concept Browser

Taxonomy of Knowledge Manifolds in Conzilla

Taxonomy of Value Types in Conzilla

Virtual Mathematics Exploratorium - Entrance

VME - Overview of Mathematical Concepts

VME - Different Types of Numbers

VME - Changing the Context for the Ring Concept

VME - Different Context for the Ring Concept

VME - Bringing up a Selection of Metadata

VME - Entering the Mathematical Subjects Map

VME - Surfing the Concept of Geometry

VME - The Content-list of Projective Geometry

VME - Viewing a Content Component from the list

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.

• Naeve, A., The Knowledge Manifold – an educational architecture that supports inquiry-based customizable forms of e-learning, WBLE-2001.

[ Reports are available in PDF at http://kmr.nada.kth.se ]

• 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.

References (cont)