Knowledge Federation as Hypermedia Discourse. This proceedings

Abstract: The motivation behind the concept of Knowledge Federation resonates closely with the orientation of the Hypermedia Discourse project1 and the Knowledge Cartography focus of a forthcoming book.2 We are concerned with the co-evolution of new tools and practices for “bringing together ” ideas, sharing the KF orientation that meaning is always contextualised, that truth is often contested, and that social processes are central to the task of meaning-making in non-trivial domains. We try to add a sharper focus to what is meant by “social processes ” by focusing specifically on the form of discourse by which problems are framed, and meaning is constructed in teams of analysts, e.g. deliberation over alternatives, dialogue seeking common ground, or rational debate and argumentation. Our work thus draws on the conceptual foundations offered by fields such as argumentation, cognitive coherence relations and organisational sensemaking. Hypermedia points to the engineering and aesthetics of managing webs of meaningful connections as visualizable networks of claims, issues, potential solutions, evidence, and so forth. One of our Hypermedia Discourse tools is Compendium3 which has an established user community whom we support online an