Sociotechnical design for KB
An online environment that supports collaborative knowledge building should have designs and functions putting ideas into the spotlight for collaborating participants to continually improve. More importantly, it should provide functions that enable participants to carry out various kinds and stages of knowledge works, as well as generating insights that make reflections on idea progression easier.
Knowledge Forum (KF) (http://ikit.org/kbe.html) was created by the Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT) University of Toronto for people to build knowledge together. It is an asynchronous online discussion environment that not only acts as a repository of ideas and theories contributed by participants, but also allows participants to see how ideas grow progressively and collaboratively. In order to support the collaborative nature of knowledge building, the KF implements a number of tools that assist online discussion and help demonstrate the four groups of a dozen total knowledge building principles.
Open exploration and sharing of ideas
KB principles:
- Community knowledge, collective responsibility
- Democratizing knowledge
- Idea diversity
| Characteristics of Social Interactions | IT Tools Design Consideration | Knowledge Forum Features | Illustrative Videos |
| Building a sense of community and maintaining group identity | Provide discussion space for both team members and the entire community to comment on different topics | Different space layouts can be easily set up for the purpose of inter-group discussion, and these layouts can be merged if necessary | |
| Allowing clearly stated goals and functions of the community | Provide visual-spatial organization of the discussion space |
Built-in graphic tools to organize and decorate views
Co-authorship function to allow a single message ("note") to be posted by multiple users |
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| Understanding participation of and interaction between different members, making appropriate adjustments to entire community discussion if necessary | Provide easy access to information on user participation and group interaction data | Built-in Analysis Tool Kit (ATK) to generate user participation statistics and social interaction patterns |
Progressive inquiry
KB principles:
- Epistemic agency
- Knowledge building discourse
- Improvable ideas
- Constructive use of authoritative sources
| Characteristics of Social Interactions | IT Tools Design Consideration | Knowledge Forum Features | Illustrative Videos |
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Identifying key issues to be investigated
Allowing members to clearly express aims and intentions behind every opinion Monitoring discussion progress Communicating changes within the community |
Highlight the foci of discussion for clarity
Assist easy organization and management of diverse ideas Allow members to communicate progress and direct the development of discourse |
Graphical tools and display function
Different discussion ‘views’ can be linked to each other Views can be linked in a hierarchical and tree format Scaffolds, keywords, annotation and reference functions Powerful search function |
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| Treating ideas and theories as improvable conceptual artifacts | Allow records of natural development of discussion content |
Users can re-open a posted ‘note’ and make changes
Referencing and annotation functions to quote other’s ideas System records in detail all activities including posts, edits, and notes read along with time and author details |
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| Making references and sharing information from sources outside of the community | Share bookmarks, annotations and comments linked to the reference sources |
Automatic generation of bibliography of references
Multimedia function for marking movie/audio clips for sharing |
Socio-metacognition
KB principles:
- Real ideas, authentic problems
- Rise above
- Embedded and transformative assessment
| Characteristics of Social Interactions | IT Tools Design Consideration | Knowledge Forum Features | Illustrative Videos |
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Exploring significant problems and seek deep understanding
Synthesizing different ideas and building theories Creating historical accounts |
Supporting the creation of archives for discussion contents
Allowing discussion content to be reorganized, conveniently archiving unimportant items so that members can focus on new/deeper KF threads |
Rise above note archives existing notes
Views can be constructed as higher-order views |
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Evaluating the knowledge building progress
Sharing findings with the wider community |
Mechanism to support such evaluation and community |
Publishing function to release notes and views to be seen by the general public
Creation of reflecting/learning portfolios to be shared with others |
A communal "habit of mind"
KB principles:
- Pervasive knowledge building
- Symmetric knowledge building
| Characteristics of Social Interactions | IT Tools Design Consideration | Knowledge Forum Features | Illustrative Videos |
| Extending knowledge building outside one’s own group | Allow easy search and participation of discussion with other groups on diverse problems |
Publish notes and views for access by other groups/general public
Multiple indices for content searches |
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| Transferring knowledge building into other situations | Simple and well-structured interface (for theory building, dialectical exchange supported with authoritative sources, and rise-above for deductive synthesis) enabling the formation of ‘habits of thinking’ | Core features (highlighted above) perform as ‘thorough and systematic thinking tools’ enabling repeated exercise in KB learning |
