Boundary Infrastructures for IBIS Federation: Design Rationale, Implementation, and Evaluation Technical Report KMI-10-01 January 2010 Jack Park Park, J. (2010). Boundary Infrastructures for IBIS Federation: Design Rationale, Implementation, and Evaluation. Thesis Proposal, available as: Technical Report1 KMI -10-01, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK. http://kmi.open.ac.uk/publications/pdf/kmi-10-01.pdf 2 Boundary Infrastructures for IBIS Federation: Design Rationale, Implementation, and Evaluation Thesis Proposal for KMI Doctoral Program December 2009 John Bartlett (Jack) Park II Student ID: Y6508120 [email protected] Supervisors: Dr. Simon Buckingham Shum Dr. Clara Mancini Prof. Geoffrey Bowker 3 Table of Contents Boundary Infrastructures for IBIS Federation: Design Rationale, Implementation, and Evaluation ........... 7 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 7 1.0 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 7 1.1 A Research Context............................................................................................................................ 9 1.2 Problem Statement.......................................................................................................................... 14 1.3 Thesis Statement ............................................................................................................................. 15 1.4 Research Questions ......................................................................................................................... 16 1.5 Proposal Structure ........................................................................................................................... 16 2.0 Literature Review............................................................................................................................. 17 2.1 How do we create the right human‐computer ecology for large scale, constructive debate? ....... 21 2.2 What are the theoretical, technical, and social dimensions of that human‐computer ecology?.... 24 2.3 What are the contributions of structure in conversations to the federation process?................... 45 3.0 An Illustrative Scenario .................................................................................................................... 59 3.1 Elicitation—Conversations............................................................................................................... 62 3.2 Conversation Federation ................................................................................................................. 63 3.3 Reflective Re‐Interpretation—Storytelling ...................................................................................... 63 4.0 Contributions....................................................................................................................................... 65 4.1 TopicSpaces Architecture ................................................................................................................ 68 4.2 TopicSpaces Merging Agent............................................................................................................. 70 4.3 Platform Federation......................................................................................................................... 80 4.4 Extending our TopicSpaces Architecture ......................................................................................... 82 4.5 Relation to Other Work ................................................................................................................... 88 5.0 Research Plan ...................................................................................................................................... 89 5.1 Platform Implementation ................................................................................................................ 90 5.2 Field Work........................................................................................................................................ 91 5.3 Concurrent Software Evolution and Research................................................................................. 91 5.4 Write up........................................................................................................................................... 92 6.0 Risks ..................................................................................................................................................... 93 6.1 Technical.......................................................................................................................................... 93 4 6.2 Operational...................................................................................................................................... 94 6.3 Geographic....................................................................................................................................... 94 6.4 Time and Finance............................................................................................................................. 94 6.5 Resources......................................................................................................................................... 95 6.6 Legal and Political ............................................................................................................................ 95 7.0 Evaluation ............................................................................................................................................ 95 8.0 References ........................................................................................................................................... 96 Appendix A—Climate Issue Maps............................................................................................................ 107 Map 1 Climate Change Top‐level......................................................................................................... 107 Map 2 Validity of Climate Change as an Issue ..................................................................................... 107 Map 3 Climate Change Mechanisms ................................................................................................... 107 Map 4 Climate Change Implications .................................................................................................... 108 Map 5 Climate Change Mitigation and Dealing ................................................................................... 108 Map 6 References................................................................................................................................ 108 Map 7 Topics........................................................................................................................................ 108 Map 8 Thermohaline Circulation ......................................................................................................... 108 Map 9 Oil Crisis 1 ................................................................................................................................. 109 5 6 Boundary Infrastructures for IBIS Federation: Design Rationale, Implementation, and Evaluation Abstract Climate change is a growing concern to humankind, since the dominant view argues for rapid, significant changes in human behavior to avert catastrophic consequences. This is a complex problem, known as a wicked problem. A productive way forward is through creative, critical dialogue. Such dialogue requires new kinds of socio-technical infrastructure. We offer a socio- technical infrastructure, described as a boundary infrastructure, based on improvements to existing and emerging Issue-based Information Systems (IBIS) conversation platforms. IBIS is an emerging lingua franca of structured discourse. We survey a rich field of literature related to ecologies for human-computer collaboration, conversation, communications theory, scientific discovery, knowledge representation and organization, and software development. Our goal is to facilitate the elicitation of numerous IBIS conversations, seeking a large variety of opinions, facts, and world views; our contribution lies in a process of federation of those IBIS conversations. Our work entails the fabrication of a prototype collective intelligence platform we call Bloomer. Bloomer includes an IBIS conversation federation component, and will be disseminated to several communities of practice, particularly those engaged in activities related to climate change. 1.0 Introduction "My advocacy is much more towards having more intelligent discussions, which is completely naive and stupid and I realize that.” —Gavin Schmidt (2009), Climatologist Stephen Denning's Springboard stories (Denning, 2001) are short stories that set a tone, introduce a concept, and have the capacity to create a memorable context in which problems can be solved, larger stories told, and more. We offer a springboard story that introduces our research: In a recent conversation among people in the Silicon Valley, Steven Chu's idea of painting roofs white (Johnson, 2009) as a means to reduce carbon associated with building cooling was the subject. Imagine hundreds or thousands of such conversations occurring around the planet, some among scientists engaged in detailed