[FRIAM] tools, trollers, and language

[glen ☣]

I think you and I on the same page.  My first thought (before the concept-mapping tools) was to collaboratively develop an ontology so that we could all talk about the same things.  But my guess is that would just cause even more hemming and hawing over terms.  Regardless of tools, someone needs to run point.  If there's a lead author and the other participants can "get behind" that author's objective, then it would work.


On 06/08/2017 03:05 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> I have found concept mapping tools to be helpful in this context, but usually in live-brainstorming sessions... with one (or more) operators clicking and typing and dragging and connecting while others chatter out loud, then shifting the mouse/keyboard(s) to another(s).
> 
> I know we have a mind-mapping ( I prefer concept-mapping) tool developer on the list...  I'm blanking his name, though I know he has been active off and on!  I hope he catches this and pitches in.  I believe he was heading toward web-enabled, simultaneous editing capabilities.   I did some tests and provided some feedback on an early version a few years ago..
> 
> My only significant experience in this is with CMAPtools and a few others driven by various project-lead's preferences, but never really adopted by myself.
> 
> I was in the process of developing some more formal tools with UNM for the NSF a few years ago, based on formalisms being developed by Tim Goldsmith (dept. Psychology) at UNM.   The presumption WAS (IS) that we all have reserved lexicons and for a collaborative group to develop a common one, there has to be a lot of discussion and negotiation.  Our example was a group of climate change scientists who (un)surprisingly used identical terms in very similar contexts with very different intentions and meanings in some cases.   It isn't too surprising when you realize that an ocean scientist and an atmospheric scientist are very interested in many of the same physical properties, but with different emphasis and within different regimes.   Pressure, density, humidity, salinity, vorticity all seem to have pretty clear meanings to any scientist using them, but the relative importance and interaction between them has different implications for each group.
> 
> Needless to say, we didn't finish the tools before the funding ran out.  This is now nearly 8 years old work... the ideas area still valid but without a patron and without SME's to "test on" it is hard to push such tools forward.   My part included building the equivalent of what you call "mind maps" from the differing lexical elements, floating in N-space and "morphing" from each individual (or subgroup's) perspective to some kind of common perspective... with the intention of helping each individual or subgroup appreciate the *different* perspective of the others.
> 
> This is modestly related to my work in "faceted ontologies" (also currently not under active development) where "multiple lexicons" is replaced by "multiple ontologies"   or in both cases, the superposition of multiple lexicons/ontologies.
> 
> I haven't worked with Joslyn since that 2007? paper... but we *tried* a joint project with PNNL/NREL a couple of years ago, but it failed due to inter-laboratory politics I think.   He's an equally brilliant/oblique character as you...   take that for what it is worth!
> 
> I liked Frank's double-dog-dare to you.   I think that is one of the good things you bring out in this list, all kinds of others' feistiness!  It was also good that you could both call it for what it was.  It makes me want to read Kohut... I have special reasons for trying to apprehend alternate self-psychology models right now, though from your's and Frank's apparent avoidance(/dismissal?) of Kahut and my immediate phonetic slip-slide to Camus, I'm a little leery.

-- 
☣ glen