Knowledge-Representation in a Computer-Supported Environment

Year: 
1977
Originally published in International Classification. 4, 1977, No.2, p. 76 - 81. Completely revised version of a paper which first appeared in 1973 and was published International Associations, 1974, pp. 208-208
 
Abstract: Discussion of problems in knowledge handling policy and indication of new software and hardware possibilities especially those making use of graphic representational devices. The necessity for a more adequate knowledge representation is demonstrated in 19 statements contrasting present documentation and information analysis procedures (as inadequate for current needs) with possibilities of future methods and measures. Reference is made to the consequent redefinition of relationships between conventional knowledge handling processes, if only in the special institutional settings where this approach will most probably be adopt

1. Pressing problems in knowledge handling policy
Software and Hardware
Knowledge representation
Conclusion
References


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1. Pressing problems in knowledge handling policy

At a time when we are exposed to:

  1. a multitude of documents in every specialized field of knowledge,
  2. a multiplicity of often-unsuspected interconnections between the concerns of different specializations, and
  3. an increasing need to interrelate the knowledge of seemingly unrelated fields, we are having difficulty in:
    1. (i) producing documents cheaply,
    2. (ii) distributing them widely, rapidly and in sufficient languages, and
    3. (iii) organizing the documentation centres, libraries and information systems to handle them.
The complexity of the knowledge handling system is such that conceptual ambiguity is the rule rather than the exception. At the same time we are running short of the paper which permits us the luxury of our incredibly ineffective, document-oriented system.

Furthermore, and more serious, the cumbersome nature of the knowledge handling system effectively prevents the maintenance of "thinking momentum" (2) on any issue, whether for an individual or in group interaction between researchers. Such disruption of innovation is increasingly intolerable as well as dangerous because of our dependence upon collective innovative and rapid responses to the many problem of society. The scholar's relaxed acceptance of extended delays (deriving from the monastic tradition and the priorities of the gentlemen-of-leisure who fathered many of the sciences) can no longer set the standard for knowledge handling [1].

The US National Science Foundation has invested heavily over the past decade in abstracting and indexing services for a range of disciplines. It recently summarized the current state of affairs as follows:

    "The world's store of scientific and technical literature continues its exponential growth, with a corresponding diversification of the uses to which it can be put. We may be nearing the limits of what can be accomplished by printing, mailing, storing, and retrieving pieces of paper." (3)
This is not the place to detail the evidence in support of this view. A significant practical example, however, is the case of the United Nations. A former President of the General Assembly remarked that "the United Nations is drowning in its own words and suffocating in its own documentation" (4). The UN Joint Inspection Unit notes that "the point of saturation has now been reached and indeed overstepped and that the law of diminishing returns is taking over" (5). Their solution implemented, however, is "to set once and for all, and strictly enforce, a reasonable but drastically reduced ceiling to the volume of documentation its various bodies call for and its services produce" (5). It can be argued that such a response to the problem is incredibly short-sighted in view of mankind's need for new knowledge and the right of all to participate in the generation of that knowledge and to receive the associated information. To reduce severely the means of storing and disseminating such knowledge within the world's key organizational system, without seeking a more appropriate complementary medium, can only be counter-productive and unsatisfactory.

If some limit is being reached then the National Science Foundation, continuing the above quotation, considers that:

    "effective communication will necessarily come to depend upon electronic means of handling information. In any case, for significant improvements in the accessibility and usefulness of the information handled we must look beyond paper-based communications to a computer-sensible literature, stored in central facilities for instantaneous presentation at remote terminals anywhere. To create such a literature through the conversion of printed literature would be slow, inefficient, and formidably expensive. For this reason, a goal for publication is to capture new literature in computer-sensible form at its source." (3)
The same document identifies other interrelated goals:
  • As in the case of publication, therefore, a goal for data banking is to capture new data compilations at their source.
  • A goal for computer-sensible information resources is to share them through a network of their holders.
  • A goal for information searching is to provide the needed capability through remote terminals which individuals can use at their places of work.
  • The process of electronic publication . . . would thus be completed through the electronic analog of a journal subscription. . . The same facilities could also be employed for less formal exchanges of information in computer-managed conferences, which have recently been found to have great value for group problem-solving and for the coordination of activities.
  • A goal for information use is to provide computer assistance through the same terminal as is employed to acquire the information.
As is noted below, the NSF is currently funding field experiments amongst groups of scientists. As has been noted elsewhere (6), it is difficult to convey the nature of the communication process in this new computer-supported, paper-less environment. "Most of our intuitions about face-to-face interaction simply do not apply to this new and unusual form of communication... it is not surprising that computer conferencing might actually establish an altered state of communication in which the realities of fact-to-face communication are distorted and entirely new patterns of interaction emerge" (6). Some impression of the significance of existing applications may be gained from the following section. A major investment in creating and experimenting with such environments has been made over the past decade through the ARPANET at the Center for Augmenting Human Intellect, Stanford Research Institute (7, 8, 9).


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