A Sense-Making Content Model

This topic presents our evolving ContentModel, integrated with a number of best practice recommendations. The content model is grounded in Sense-Making. The current presentation reflects the Sense-Making foundation and the fact that I haven't had a chance to rewrite this description.

How we got here (methodology)

Initially, we reviewed the existing pages in our TWiki as well as several other TWikis, held discussions among our existing membership, reviewed our own journal entries, and proposed a simpler model (which can be viewed in earlier revisions of this topic.)

After living with that model for a while, we conducted some contextual interviews with members, reviewed entries from the initial content model, and refined the model to this model. One thing that is clear is that those community members who have been most aware of the earlier model have been most successful in their use of the TWiki. AhatSkin is still fairly young at this time, but we hope that it will help in promoting visibility of the model.

Joining theory and practice (MetaTheory)

Authorship (Ideology)

Authorship of topics lies on a spectrum ranging from

• community information, e.g., the pocket lab Best Practices. Community information is info that is intended to have shared authorship, although it is often hard to get there

to

• shared information, in which the locus of control remains largely with the person who initiates the conversation, e.g., JennysRandomThoughts.

In a number of cases, a topic or discussion will start out as collaborative sense-making of information with shared info and become community info over time. This topic is such a case in point.

Types of pages (Epistemology)

1. content - a page that focuses on a single topic.
   • If the topic is a community topic, then it's a really good idea to refactor the topic any time the amount of information exceeds a monitor's worth of information. For example, this topic really needs refactoring! While some folks happily read on past the initial screen, the tendency of a large chunk of the menus-and-mice world to miss any information 'below the fold' was established long before the web existed.
     • This rule is clearly less important for information that is being shared, but remains primarily with the author. Still, it is a good thought to keep in mind - using a generated table of contents would be a good idea, for example.
2. organizational - pages that exist primarily to present relationships between other pages, whether those are content pages or other organizational pages.
   • In Rob's first pass at writing this topic, he said that these pages, which he called 'indices' were 'intelligently arranged' to 'foster easy and efficient access of information in linked to content pages.' The problem with that explanation is that, since the arranger has not encountered the contextualized information need of the page user, search could equally well meet that criterion, and many students immediately head off to Google for just that reason.
   • Thus an arranged index simply isn't enough. Don't bother. What else can you do? Explain your arrangement. I know that seems odd, and like it would not make a difference, but it does. Try it for yourself - look at pages of links that you find useful, blogs that you find useful and ones you don't. See what the style differences are. What's going on? Well, the arranger (that's you) does not have access to the contextualized information need of the page user (that's the person looking at your organizational page) when choosing which relationships to present between the information present in the content, let alone how to present those relationships. However, if the user has access to the contextualized information need the arranger had in mind when constructing their arrangement, the user has a fighting chance of mapping their own needs to the arrangement presented. That's why annotated bibliographies, particularly authentic personalized annotated bibliographies, are so useful. Make sense? I'm planning on getting all my materials from my research methods course up on this TWiki this summer ('08). Also, hopefully, we can get some of the Sense Making specialists to come play with us.
   • Finally, don't forget that this is hypertext! You can link info from multiple pages, indices, etc., We tried linking some stuff from multiple palettes? though, and that was not a good idea.
3. search - search pages are useful, too, especially in the context of a good interaction design, content model, information architecture, etc. The better the rest of the site is, the more useful search is in my experience, because search not only finds what you are looking for, but gives you insights into the structure of the site as a whole. Also, search is far more useful for an expert who understands how people organize info than for someone who always falls back on search. My students are always astonished at how quickly I find things. Heck, guys, you should meet my Dad He's amazing! And he's a retired lawyer....

Designing Information over time (aka Digital Inclusion aka Ontology)

[... add a quick explanation of how digital inclusion relates to issues in access to understanding agile methods and the free/libre software technologies used in TWiki ...]

some specific refactoring recommendations

• content pages - we now have template topics to help with ease of managing leaf, node and roots of related materials. Feel free to improve, modify, etc., from sense-making, interaction, content, information architecture, look-and-feel, etc., points of view.
• organizational pages - so, how do you get access to users' contextualized information needs, arranger? Start by looking at your own motivation to make that page and being clear, open and honest about it. Next, come up with something that will benefit your users right now, today. Be willing to cede a certain amount of control in return for them working with you. Finally, listen. They will tell you what they need. In turn, tell them what you understood them to say while you are creating your organizational page. It's a process, not an end product. Fundamentally, though, there's nothing wrong with multiple organizational pages, so long as they stay maintained.

Please add to this discussion if you have ideas/comments.

HilaryHolz - 30 May 2008, RobertSajan - 09 May 2008, HilaryHolz - 09 May 2008, HilaryHolz and NateDelgado 27 June 2008, HilaryHolz - 31 July 2008, -- HilaryHolz - 23 Mar 2009