Graphically and spatially displayed text tool: Compendium

Compendium was developed by combining of an Issue-Based Information System (IBIS) and concept-mapping tool (Conklin and Burgess Yakemovic, 1991). This supported informal and exploratory conversation and facilitation, with a structured modelling approach (Selvin, 1999) with the underlying knowledge management aim. Conklin (2007) identifies this combination of a shared hypertext display, a trained facilitator, and a conversational grammar as Dialogue Mapping, a structural augmentation of group communication. As the conversation unfolds and the map grows, each participant can see a summary of the discussion thus far. The map serves as a "group memory," virtually removing the need for participants to repeat themselves in order to get their points across.

Other benefits of Dialogue Mapping include:

• Each participant's contribution is heard and acknowledged in the map.
• Each participant can see how their comments relate to others.
• The group sees where they are, where they've come from, and where they are going, and is thus self-correcting if they get "off-topic." (example Agenda map)
• The shared display map shifts the dynamic of the group into a collaborative mode ... "What can we think and learn together."
• The map focuses the group on a kind of "lightly logical" perspective as they work on the issues at hand.
• The map increases the group's shared understanding about the problem at hand, possible solutions, meaning issues, roles and responsibilities ... all of the key elements of a successful project.
• At the end of the meeting or during breaks, the group can view various printed snapshots of their discussion.
• Thanks to the IBIS grammar, the map summarizes the rationale behind any decisions that are made.
• Since the map captures the thinking process of the group, anyone who was not at the meeting can be quickly brought up to speed by reviewing the map with them.
• The map easily displays all of the open issues and action items at any point.

Benefits of Dialogue Mapping taken from Conklin 2007

‘Compendium is about sharing ideas, creating artefacts, making things together, and breaking down the boundaries between dialogue, artefact, knowledge, and data.’ (Selvin and Shum 2006, pp 6) They claim that this software provides a faster as well as a better way for groups and project teams to collaborate. Compendium offers a set of templates, methods, and tools that bring together people and their ideas. Compendium gives participants control over knowledge elements and allows the groups to use them in numerous ways such as, in meetings, in documents, working alone and working at a distance.

Compendium tool taken from Selvin & Shum (2002)

Ideas are expressed as icons or nodes which can be moved around, and connected to other ideas via links. These nodes are contained in Views. Views can also contain other Views. There are two kinds of Views:

•             a Map in which nodes can be placed anywhere in a 2D space, and

•             a List which organizes nodes in a sortable column.

There are different node types which can be used -

Question -         To ask a question or raise an issue related to a specific subject matter

Idea -                To provide a likely answer or alternative to a question

List View -       To generate a sortable list of nodes

 To place the results of a search, for example, to create a Catalogue of items

 To create a collection of nodes that do not need to be linked with each other

Map View -      To produce a representation of the relationships between ideas

 To group questions and ideas together in meaningful clusters

 To create associative links between nodes

Pro -                 To support an idea

Con -                To argue against an idea

Reference -       To bring in a link to an external file (e.g. a websites, spreadsheet, picture, or     document). A file can be dragged and dropped from anywhere in Windows into a Map  or List. A common file type is recognized by Compendium and labelled with the right icon automatically.

Note -               To provide extra or useful information about another node or the current view

Decision -         To resolve a question – link it to an Idea, or right-click on the Idea to change it directly to a Decision node

The links between the nodes can be of three types –

•             Associative links which connect ideas in the same context. Participants just draw the links between ideas and they are displayed as physically connected.

•             Transclusive links which connect the same idea in different contexts. Thus, transclusive relationships show the same idea in multiple contexts. For example, within a project, the same idea that originated in an email in context might resurface in another context such as an agenda item for a meeting, or as part of an analysis session, or as part of a formal requirements document. In each case, one idea is associated with different ideas, but the same idea appears in all the different cases. Compendium allows participants to track this by reusing the same node for a given idea in multiple maps/lists. Editing a node in one view (e.g. its label, detail, tags, or its icon) instantly updates in all other views. Transclusive hyperlinking gives you the means to track an idea in all its appearances.

•             Categorical links are connections between ideas because they are in the same category. Compendium, allows participants to classify an idea by giving it a tag / keyword. You can invent tags to mark anything that you may want to search for. Tags can be arbitrarily combined when searching and therefore provide yet another way to express connections between ideas, because they have something in common.

This seems to be a good option in the software as adding tags to nodes enables searches, cross-references, and the on-the-fly creation of specialized maps and lists without the manual work of assembling them node-by-node. To further aid in the coding process, Groups of tags can be created and maintained to support different tasks. New tags can be defined on-the-fly. The maps created using Compendium are complex and can be used to manage knowledge in projects both in business and in education.

Navigating in Compendium in a similar to navigating the Web, so having good view labels is akin to having good titles for web pages. View labelling is particularly essential, since nodes can be located in multiple views. When displaying the list of those views, it actually helps if one can understand from their names what they contain! For example, give View node labels suffixes that show what type of view it is.

Compendium also allows templates to be developed to facilitate the creation of maps that follow a known, structured format - a set of questions driven by the process to be followed. These questions can be exported as templates and imported into new maps. ‘Any standard process or methodology can be translated into intuitive Question templates to focus analysis and decision-making. The structured maps that result can then be used to generate documentation, or pass data to another system.’ (Selvin and Shum 2006, pp. 33) The tutorial for compendium is available online.

The facilitator here is reduced to the role of maintaining the information and developing the map in real time by inputting the information as the discussion is carried on, for the participants to view and develop. There is no suggestion that the facilitator contribute to the discussion. The development of the argumentation map is taking place using technology while the discussion is taking place face to face. This tool makes little use of facilitator and so can be considered for use by collaborative communities to maintain records and put the knowledge into perspective within different situations.