social software&sustainable knowledge

Social software, sustainable knowledge development and responsibility

Maerlant Centre

Social software, sustainable knowledge

development and responsibility

Frederik Truyen, K.U.Leuven

Online Publishing


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What will we discuss? Social Software Changing expectations on knowledge

• 4 short example cases • From information to knowledge• Knowledge as a social construction • The Network of knowledge

Impact on e-learning strategies• From LCMS to Learning Networks• Two example projects

Ethical dimension of knowledge as a foundation of (e-)learning strategy


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Social software and web 2.0

Integrates aspects of group interaction (different forms of online interactivity and different modes of communication)

Easy to use. Accessible, simple technology Emergent: enables group self-organisation,

rather then imposing an organisation to a group.

Bottom-up, adaptive and subversive


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Two parallell movements Socialisation of the web

• The web connects people. It allows peer-to-peer knowledge development

• Information selection through the social network, e.g. social bookmarking

• >> Rich Use

Automation

• The computer network acts on the content, it plays a role in content selection

• Information selection through metadata (tags): Resource Description Framework

• >> Rich Content


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Examples Online collaboration

• Wikipedia• Wiki’s• Blogs

Social bookmarking• Delicious• Mind-mapping• Folksonomies• Tagging / Tagclouds

Social networking• Linked-In• Facebook• Hives

Social sharing• YouTube• Flickr• MySpace• RSS-feeds


Changing expectations on knowledge

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Case 1: Linux-installation IT professional performs an installation of Linux

• People agree he/she “knows” how to do it, he/she is “in the know”

• Yet, he/she has no knowledge of all details: there simply are to many details to be known

• Needs no real insight in key explanatory mechanisms: weak justification

• Has to fall back on online documentation• Needs chat with other professionals• “Just-in-Time delivery” of key items• Has certainty on his/her network: strong metabeliefs• Has good knowledge on own knowledge reach and limits


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Case 2: epo-test Lab performs epo-test

• No individual certainty of researcher/lab assistant: an individual can no longer oversee the complex lab setup

• Fallback on procedures• Certification of instruments• Certification of Lab procedures• Peer-review of used methodology• We can safely say the lab assistant “knows” the result;

however, the assistant fails the traditional benchmark for knowledge, since he has no individual certainty

• The lab environment enforces the knowledge claim, it provides enabling conditions

• Lab result can be contested on prodecures


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Case 3: Family doctor Little girl with grandpa visits family doctor

• Doctor has ca. 30 minutes for each patient• Grandpa maybe is a highly educated aeronautics engineer,

who has studied his grandchild’s case on PubMed• Patient side has more brainpower/time resources available

than doctor and has ample access to information• The social context is to the disadvantage of the family

doctor, whose authority is challenged• A modern approach will try to use and exploit the patient

side in the knowledge strategy towards addressing the disease, while stressing the family doctor’s information validation skills and responsibility therein


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Case 4: CEO presents annual balance

The CEO is legally bound to communicate a truthful annual balance

• Complexity of accounting goes far beyond his own cognitive powers

• Depends on very complex software processing tens of thousands of transactions

• CEO needs to follow trust-enhancing procedures Hiring qualified accountancy personnel Selecting certified software Ordering timely, independent external audits

• The CEO cannot hide from his responsibility to know what is considered to be within reasonable reach


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What happened? In the four cases, today’s availability of information

and its inherent complexity defy our traditional conceptions about what one should and can know

The individual often can’t cope any longer on his own to make a justifiable knowledge judgment

New requirements are set out for what is socially accepted as knowledge

This poses some challenges for education (e-)Learning should support these requirements and

address these challenges


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From information to knowledge

Internet is often seen as a tool for easy distribution of information

• It has been compared with the introduction of print and its impact

• It solves the distribution problem• Hailed as a major democratization of

information• Availabilty is no longer the problem,

retrieval and assessment are


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However …

Information is not the same as knowledge (Dretske 1999, Floridi 2007)

More so, the concept of knowledge itself comes under strain due to the information age (Schiltz – Truyen - Coppens 2007)


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Diagram largely based on the work of Luciano Floridi (Floridi 2006)


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Information vs. knowledge

InformationIs a commodityCan be copiedIs impersonalIs a message

KnowledgeCannot exist in itselfCan be acquiredBecomes personalIs a state


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Knowledge reach

The knowledge reach is related to our activities, and the required granularity to support our actions

We do not all need the same depth of knowledge on a specific topic (Kripke 1980)

Social organization helps to make available the knowledge we need when we need it (Goldman 1999)


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Knowledge as social construction

An ever increasing percentage of our knowledge is about our own creations, like artifacts and concepts

• (e.g. organisational psychology studies abstract concepts like “job satisfaction” etc.)

These concepts gain their meaning from the social context (Lave & Wenger 1991)


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Knowledge is related to human action

“If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.”

• (Wittgenstein, PI, p.223)


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Knowledge in the network

Sharing of responsibility for knowledge Deference to experts (Kripke 1980) Reasonable grounds to accept something

from a known expert (Burge 1979) Participative knowledge model

• Stakeholders• Testimony (Burge 1993)

Development of procedures


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Knowledge in the network Externalisation of knowledge (Clarck & Chalmers 1998)

• On a macro level External memory (knowledge is stored) (Bush 1945) Translation into organisations, structures Consolidation into artifacts Integration into software External validation

• On a micro level We weave our personal knowledge trail on our portable, mobile, iPod,

PDA, … Socialization of knowledge (Goldman 1999)

• What we know is what others accept that we know, we are entrusted with knowledge

Acculturation of our environment: we are gradually operating in a more and more knowledgeable, intelligible domain


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Knowledge development circle

Knowledge is passed on from experts to stakeholder communities, where it is merged with practice to yield more concrete, specific knowledge

This way, a knowledge development circle emerges where at one time one acts as an expert, at another one uses other experts’ insights as a professional


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Just-in-Time delivery

The true revolution in the knowledge economy can be compared with the evolution in logistics and transport

We are heading to Just-in-time delivery of knowledge


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Knowledge on Demand


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Different structure of knowledge

Contemporary knowledge integrates the time dimension

No static descriptions, but a continuous tuning of knowledge-paths

Knowledge is becoming project-centered Knowledge is industrially produced in research and

more artisanal in the stakeholder communities “Guarantees” for knowledge claims are required Certification and self-certification help to build trust in

new knowledge domains


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Multifacetted en fine-meshed

Each “community of practice” develops a proper language registry to grasp its activity domain

These intricate overlapping realms of meaning give a rich variety to what is to be known

What would the richness of the world of ideas be without the depth of human activity?

Each will decide the depth and width of the particular understanding he needs to develop in a layered knowing society


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Simulation rather than representation

Computers with massive computing power enable real-time simulations

Advanced parameterization makes classical “understanding” less achievable, yet it is possible to make simulations with sufficient predictive strength

Science amounts to reliable predications rather than “understanding”

Acquired knowledge is dependent on the simulation environment


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Simulation

There is a specific knowledge transfer in a simulation

On-line games e.g. do not only aim at factual reconstruction but also and foremost experience reconstruction

• Coping with emotions• Build emotional and social knowledge• Learn how to make agreements and

committments


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Knowledge actors

People Groups Organisations Artifacts

• Machines• Software• Bots


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Impact on (e)Learning

Weaving the web of knowledge


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Universitaire meerwaardeketen

LCMSLCMS

Wiki’s, blogs, forums, groups, shared spaces, conferencing ...

Wiki’s, blogs, forums, groups, shared spaces, conferencing ...

E-Learning

Information oriented

Knowledge oriented


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Learning changes

Knowledge becomes a personal journey in a social environment (think about E-Portfolio)

Learning is reaching the network of stakeholders

Learning is getting accepted in the circle of “those in the know”

It requires taking responsibility for knowing


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Track while Scan

In a wide sweep, we keep track on a whole range of adjacent knowledge fields, without going into details

• We trust others to do so … Depending on the need, we will engage

specific details in depth• We learn others to trust we are doing so …


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Knowledge workers Knowledge workers and researchers

• Introduce themselves in a « community of practice » (Wenger …)

• Mix private and professional knowledge development

• Gain authority • Have good situational awareness of the

knowledge network• Feel responsible for a particular knowledge

domain• Weave their personal web of knowledge, often on

their laptop and other mobile devices


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To Know is to Learn

Learning is a continuous, unalienable state The learner needs to build on specific meta-

cognitive skills that will help him to clearly understand where the boundaries lay of his own responsibilities and what can be given safely in a “hand-off” to others. This can be lateral, higher or lower in the knowledge chain.


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Ethical dimension of knowledge

Learning then becomes getting involved in a reference-community in a reliable way

Taking and granting responsibility is becoming crucial

There is an imperative to mutual quality assessment and control

One will always have to assess, at the boundaries of one’s own core competence domain, how “loosely” one is allowed to know things to be able to perform in a professional way


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From LCMS to Learning Network

The static LCMS need to earn its place in the virtual social workspace of the student

The student has to be encouraged to build his own learning network

Part of the evaluation of the student should focus on his « Virtual Sitz im Leben »

Students will learn to assess each others knowledge and learn to claim their own


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Two projects to illustrate this

Leuven University Association starts a project « personal information management skills » for each student as a prerequisite for networked knowledge competencies

From virtual to real:New Humanities Study Landscape project tries to extend the virtual workspace of the students with real rooms for structured collaborative work

• A group work « cell » room can be booked by students• It hooks into their virtual environment• Project needs sophisticated didactical models to really

enforce group learning


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Conclusion Knowledge-oriented e-learning is something

quite different from just using online tools to complete a cognitive task

It also is quite more than a layer of social skills over a cognitive learning path

On the contrary, it are essentially cognitive competencies, understood from within the social context which is the learning network

The ethics of knowledge is the foundation of any sustainable (e-)learning strategy


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Contact

Prof. Dr. Frederik Truyen• Maerlant Centre, Institute for Cultural

Studies at Faculty of Arts Leuven University

• [email protected]


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Short bibliography Burge, Tyler (1979) `Individualism and the Mental', Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4:

73—121. Burge, Tyler (1993) `Content Preservation', Philosophical Review 102: 457—88. Bush, Vannevar (1945) `As We May Think', The Atlantic Monthly 15(176): 101—8.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush] Castells, Manuel (1996) The Rise of the Network Society (The Information Age:

Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. 1). Oxford: Blackwell. Clark, Andy and Chalmers, David J. (1998) `The Extended Mind', Analysis 58: 10—23.

(Reprinted in P. Grim (ed.) The Philosopher's Annual, Vol. XXI, 1998.) [ http://consc.net/papers/extended.html]

Eisenstein, Elisabeth L. (1979) The Printing Press as an Agent of Social Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-modern Europe, 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goldman, Alvin (1999) Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goldman, Alvin (2002) Pathways to Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


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Short bibliography Kittler, Friedrich (1993) `Geschichte der Kommunikationsmedien', in A. Assman and J.

Huber (eds) Raum und Verfahren, pp. 169—88. Basel/Frankfurt am Main: Stroemfeld /Roter Stern.

Kripe, Saul (1980) Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kripke, Saul (1982) Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press. Morville, Peter (2005) Ambient Findability. Cambridge, MA: O'Reilly Publishing. [cf.

http://www.findability.org] O'Reilly, Tim (2005) `What Is Web 2.0? — Design Patterns and Business Models for the

Next Generation of Software.' [http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html]

Schiltz, Michael, Verschraegen, Gert and Magnolo, Stefano (2006) `Open Access to Knowledge in World Society?', Soziale Systeme 11(2): 346—69.

Schiltz, Michael, Frederik Truyen, and Hans Coppens. 2007. Cutting the Trees of Knowledge: Social Software, Information Architecture, and Their Epistemic Consequences. Thesis Eleven. Journal of Critical Theory and Historical Sociology. issue 89.

Weinberger, David (2006) `Taxonomies and Tags from Trees to Piles of Leaves.' [http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/misc/taxonomies_and_tags.html ]

Weinberger, David (2007) ‘Everything is Miscellaneous’

social software&sustainable knowledge

Education

harvard university

oxford university

social construction

social software

social context

time delivery

learning network

knowledge