Participatory Web
- with wikis, comments, tags and hashtags -
has transformed our hobbies.
But what about work?
more specifically, intellectual work,
also known as "knowledge work" ?
This is precisely what we are exploring
through the software prototypes of the Hypertopic platform.
This software platform is born
from collaboration between researchers from different universities
and, above all, from different disciplines.
These researchers agreed on the need to take into account
in computer models for these knowledge workers,
the fact that points of view may differ,
the fact that not everything can be classified or counted,
or that certain notions cannot be translated from one language to another.
But what is common between the approach of an art historian studying a stained glass window,
a sociologist investigating teachers who "drop out",
students translating a Perrault fairy tale,
and a committed citizen wanting to transpose ecological transition initiatives locally?
They all devote time and attention
to building the object they will later study.
They document it so that it is admissible by others as a source.
As seen in the animation on the screen,
The description model must be sufficiently free
to accommodate the singularity and originality of each source,
but at the same time
must encourage a certain sedimentation of description
so that these sources gradually become a corpus.
Then, it is time to interpret these sources.
The first form of interpretation that came to mind
was categorization.
As the most important thing is often the least consensual,
categories belong to "viewpoints",
points of view that can be those of different experts,
different schools of thought
or from different disciplines.
Furthermore, unlike traditional knowledge management tools,
categories are constructed by the actors themselves,
in situation, as close as possible to the case,
before being reused for other similar cases.
In more general terms,
whether it is a translator who wants to introduce a work to the public,
to new readers across language and cultural barriers,
or a sociologist who wants to report to his peers and to society at large
a social fact experienced by his informants,
interpretation involves determining the unit that makes sense, the fragment,
interpretation involves exploring all possible meanings,
and finally it involves the careful choice of words to translate without "betraying".
From reformulation to reformulation, a graph is created,
a hypertext as imagined by Theodor Nelson in the 60s,
a way of hijacking computers,
into what he called "literary machines".
Interpreting sources often leads to theorizing.
The sociologist, for example, articulate the different dimensions of the experience of the actors he meets,
to account for situations that are attested and therefore possible.
The art historian will sometimes incorporate more general knowledge
from archival documents.
As in the screenshot in the upper right corner,
the translator, for a recurring term,
given the various translations he has provided in previous contexts,
is going to set out in a glossary the ones that would suit all of them.
Many of these knowledge workers prefer,
at first, to work without being seen.
Afterwards, they will be able to invite collaborators,
and disseminate their work more widely.
This phase, which is essential for initiating a participatory approach,
is often hampered by a lack of knowledge
about personal data protection
or intellectual property.
On this point, for example, we experiment
support in choosing "Creative Commons" licenses.
The last phase, which completes the cycle
between the share of an interpretation or a theory
and the creation of a new interpretation by a new actor,
seems to be a debate, a more informal discussion.
This is why we recently experimented
the reuse of ready-to-use discussion components.
Initial observations suggest that,
the intellectual, scientific, debate
would require additional features,
such as the including bibliographical references,
or showing, indicating,
a fragment of the source.
Through these five verbs, we have seen that
despite the obvious differences between the work of a sociologist,
a translator, an art historian,
an engaged citizen,
there were analogies in method
in the interpretative paths followed.
Within the Hypertopic software platform
we explore, for each of these steps,
different uses, different ways of theorizing and instrumenting them.
Gradually, it becomes possible to mutualize the corresponding software components,
and, in this way, to ensure that the work of the community benefits each participant.
For an even wider impact,
the entire platform is published as free software.
We hope to contribute
to what Theodor Nelson wanted to create
by inventing the notion of "hypertext"
almost 60 years ago :
"Literary machines",
in other words: "a digital architecture for intellectual work".