05. An idea around an information gathering-collaborating-documenting tool

I have observed and used many content/knowledge management platforms that are being used in corporate environments. But the core concerns around information overload, accuracy, precision, duplicity, lineage/provenance and relationships is mostly not addressed. This is a problem when someone attempts to co-relate information or when he/she is searching for related contextual information across time or event or location etc.,.

Imagine the same problem for a historian or a R&D scholar or some knowledge worker like media reporters who may happen to write a report/thesis or a book covering a decade.

There is this semantic web concepts to make all the web contents into machine readable formats. But I am talking about the content itself – not just some form of representing the content.

This gave me an idea around a cloud-enabled, free community tool deployed on a global scale to help historians, R&D scholars and knowledge workers working on R&D endeavours and/or gathering information pertaining to the public domain.

If the information researched is private, then we can have a similar desktop tool whose contents are published in protected domains for collaboration, reviews and approvals. This same tool should enable publishing of this private information to the public cloud-enabled platform, seamlessly and without much effort, when the data needs to be made public post de-classification/disclosures.

Let us consider the classic case of the act of recording some part of a history. Similar thought can be applied to an R&D worker or a new reporter or a columnist or in similar other fields.

Before allowing the recording of the observations in the manuscript, the following meta information about the collected data should be recorded in the tool under several headers:

• ·       Project charter

• ·       Author’s biodata and credentials (UUID for author)

• ·       Collaborator’s biodata and credentials (UUID for collaborators)

• ·       Reviewer’s biodata and credentials (UUID for reviewers)

• ·       Approvers biodata and credentials (UUID for approvers)

• ·       Proofreader’s biodata and credentials (UUID for proofreaders)

• ·       Publishers’ information (UUID for publishers)

• ·       Context

1.       A brief description of the goals and objectives

2.       A brief description of the project endeavour

3.       A brief description of the subject in question

• ·       Time context (based on existing asserted truths only, that are available in public domain or unravelled by new evidence)

1.       Period in context

§  AD/CE

§  BCE

2.       Year/Month/Day/Week/ Corresponding spans etc.,

3.       Era

4.       Age

5.       Epoch etc.,

• ·       Locations (based on existing asserted truths only, that are available in public domain or unravelled by new evidence)

1.       UUID for the location 

2.       Realm (to provide additional information on the considered location)

3.       Region/Geo

4.       Country/administrative region

5.       Name of the location

6.       Time span that the location remained in this state.

7.       Area - Measuring units (past)

8.       Area - Measuring units (current)

• ·       Observations (unravelled by evidence)

1.       Asserted Truths

2.       Asserted Falsehoods

3.       Undecided

• ·       Character Contexts (based on existing asserted truths only, that are available in public domain or unravelled by new evidence)

1.       UUID for the character

2.       Titles held.

3.       Names and Aliases

4.       Filial Relationships (UUIDs are sufficient)

5.       Friendly relationships (UUIDs are sufficient)

6.       Official Relationships (UUIDs are sufficient)

7.       Adversarial Relationships (UUIDs are sufficient)

8.       Other undocumented Relationships

9.       Important events in life (UUIDs are sufficient)

10.   Other personalities that shared the same time (UUIDs are sufficient)

11.   Date of birth

12.   Date of death

• ·       Event Contexts (based on existing asserted truths only, that are available in public domain or unravelled by new evidence)

1.       UUID for the event

2.       Event name (naming standard to be defined in the history DSL)

3.       Aliases

4.       Impacts

5.       Persons Involved (UUIDs are sufficient)

6.       People/Persons affected (UUIDs are sufficient)

7.       Other events that shared the same time span (UUIDs are sufficient)

8.       Other personalities who lived in the same span (UUIDs are sufficient)

• ·       Evidence (with appropriate naming standard to be defined in the history DSL)

1.       Historical (define the time before which it is considered as historical)

§  Artefacts (UUID for artefact)

§  Images (UUID for images)

§  Videos/Media (UUID for videos/media)

2.       Current

§  Artefacts (UUID for artefact)

§  Images (UUID for images)

§  Videos/Media (UUID for videos/media)

Here I would stress to keep the above meta-information in an internationally accepted pre-set fashion (for example as a suitable DSL for historical information) so that when this tool is deployed in cloud for public consumption, it can, for instance pull all other materials that are in conformity or that are in dis-agreement. Based on these results, some central authority can flag the review of the related contents so that alignment is achieved and the truths – nothing but truths are recorded in history.

When the context as above is entered, the tool should scan the public domain and fill-in the asserted truths as much as needed and fill-in the headers, in the context, preferably by using an appropriate AI technology. This pulled information must be reviewed/accepted by the author and the collaborating team before proceeding with the project execution.

Once the online tool has been activated, there should be a governance process for not only managing the tool but also for resolving differences in the information documented.

The actual description of the historical event is then left to the imagination of the author/historian.

Similar due diligence can be applied to research data around the important issues that have huge global impact or construed to benefit millions of people or other species. This information should be shared in public domain and perhaps this data should have its own or additional DSL(meta-information) as shown in above reference relating to history. Similarly, the daily news reports/columns etc., can be annotated using appropriate DSL using the tool and published – perhaps first in local domain and then in the public domain.