The increase in the amount of information, as well as the speed at which it can be processed and transmitted to any point in the globe, has opened up many possibilities for many human enterprises. The pervasiveness of computer technology and the access to ever-greater computer processing power present opportunities for teams or groups engaged in some common task or team work. Computer-based systems that provide these groups an interface to some shared environment that helps them in their common tasks, are frequently called groupware. Thus, such tasks assisted by groupware, are examples of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW).
The area of CSCW is broad and encompasses not merely the study of tools and techniques of groupware but also their psychological, social and organizational effects. CSCW thus concerns itself not only with the way people work in groups, but also with technologies such as computer networking as well as issues of human–computer interaction. For example, people working in groups engage in discussion and argumentation; it thus makes sense to incorporate discussion and argumentation in CSCW studies. For this reason, a book such as 'Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-Making' self-described as a book on computer-supported argument visualization (CSAV), an aspect of information visualization, fits in very well in a series on CSCW.
Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-Making seeks to explore argument visualization as a tool to 'help us to establish common ground between diverse stakeholders, understand positions on issues, surface assumptions and criteria, and collectively construct consensus on whatever grounds can be found.' It establishes that CSAV tools are 'designed to assist in collating, and then making sense of information and possible narratives that weave threads of coherence.' The book follows through on the insight, that identifying and understanding real world problems, as well as agreeing on what might be solutions to them require extensive discussion.
The book seeks to address two different but interacting audiences: CSAV researchers and CSAV practitioners. The book presents current CSAV trends, and describes different contexts where CSAV is in current use. For the theoreticians and researchers, this means recounting CSAV's history, restating its conceptual foundations, suggesting ideas for future research and amplifying the insight, that different contexts where CSAV is used require different goals, representations, and modes of working with argument visualization. For the practitioners, this means showing application case studies in both organizational and educational areas, and demonstrating practical CSAV techniques to extend one's individual and collective sense-making ability in both.
The book, from its Preface to its Afterword, is a compact unity. A very ample preface provides the reader the editors' reasons for publishing the book, its aims, an overview of its chapters and a summary of its Afterword. After the table of contents, the list of authors, together with brief backgrounder of each, follows. The book chapters are grouped into two sections. Chapters 1 and 2 form the first section, which is aptly entitled Foundations. Chapters 3–9 cover the second section named Applications. The Afterword provides some provocative remarks regarding the role CSAV tools may be used to solve global wicked problems.
The section entitled Foundations presents both the historical context and the conceptual roots of CSAV. Chapter 1, entitled The Roots of Computer Supported Argument Visualization, traces the historical and conceptual foundations of CSAV from its roots in argumentation visualization and computer-supported argumentation. Chapter 2, entitled A Cognitive Framework for Cooperative Problem Solving with Argument Visualization, points out research on problem solving cognition and its relationship to CSAV tools and applications. A framework, which identifies the varied roles that CSAV tools can play as cognitive aids in cooperative problem solving, is also used to situate the research literature on argumentation tools in learning. Furthermore, this chapter serves to transition the first section into the second section of the book.
This second and longer section of the book is a presentation of different computer software in different environments for applications in education, organizational sense-making and scholarly discourse.
Each of the chapters in the Applications section is devoted to a context where argumentation visualization is used. Each of the chapters introduces either an application or approach or both, which demonstrate an example of computer support for the context the chapter discusses. Thus, Chapter 3 Designing Argumentation Tools for Collaborative Learning is devoted to collaborative learning and TC3. Chapter 4 Using Computer Supported Argument Visualization to Teach Legal Argumentation presents legal argumentation and QuestMap. Chapter 5 Enhancing Deliberation Through Computer Supported Argument Visualization shows Reason!Able, an application program for enhancing deliberation. Chapter 6 Dialog Mapping: Reflections on an Industrial Strength Case Study highlights IBIS and its use in dialog mapping. Chapter 7 Fostering Collective Intelligence: Helping Groups Use Visualized Argumentation delves into fostering collective intelligence and the Compendium approach. Chapter 8 Infrastructure for Navigating Interdisciplinary Debates: Critical Decisions for Representing Argumentation enters issues regarding infrastructure for navigating interdisciplinary debates. Chapter 9 Visualizing Internetworked Argumentation discusses visualizing scholarly publishing and argumentation.
The Afterword reflects on the earlier chapters and presents the idea of bootstrapping as the link term between CSAV's theories and applications. It sees the community of CSAV researchers and practitioners as an 'improvement community' contributing to help achieve one of society's 'grand challenges', which is to increase humankind's collective problem-solving capabilities. The Afterword uses the term 'Collective IQ' to characterize this capability, which is needed to assess and solve the really complex, urgent and wicked problems the world faces.
The Afterword's concept of facilitated evolution of improvement infrastructures is a challenge to the CSAV community to find approaches in how to use CSAV processes in asynchronous Web-based settings, how to include legacy documents in inter-networks such as are inspired by discourse ontologies, and how to address the issues of scalability and evolvability for theories or technologies, which would be brought to bear on large-scale wicked problem solving by global-scale communities. An effective improvement community would improve its own capability through a Dynamic Knowledge Repository (DKR) which it itself maintains. The image thus created is one of bootstrapping, a process aided by CSAV theories and technologies that fuel the creation of better CSAV theories and technologies.
All the chapters are interesting. For those who are inclined to look for a review of the history of computer-supported argument visualization, Chapter 1 is specially recommended. For those who want to approach the topic from either a cognitive science approach or a problem-solving interest, a careful reading of chapter 2 is fundamental. Chapters 3–7 would be attractive to various constituencies, CSCL researchers, lawyers and legal educators, decision-makers, and negotiators. This reviewer finds Chapters 8 and 9 the most compelling and interesting as these two chapters explore interdisciplinary debates; these are the most contentious because of the shifting stands, definitions and paradigms that make visualizations very helpful for mutual understanding and clarity. Finally, a companion website www.VisualizingArgumentation.info, which includes color versions of the black and white diagrams in the book, makes it easy for the reader to access the Web resources referred to in the book.
As a parting shot, Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-Making is a highly readable book, which can be used as a backbone textbook for courses in argument visualization, and a resource book for courses in artificial intelligence, CSCL, CSCW and related disciplines. It is a recommended reading for those who would want to use computer resources for interdisciplinary debates and discussions.
