Integrating Human & Machine Document Annotation for Sensemaking

KMi, the Knowledge Media Institute* of the Open University, Milton Keynes, has been working on semantic annotation and mapping.  KMi's Cohere is semantic annotation and knowledge mapping tool.  In November 2010, "Integrating Human & Machine Document Annotation for Sensemaking" was presented by Dr. Simon Buckingham Shum, Anna DeLiddo, Ágnes Sándor, and Michelle Bachler. 
The webcast is available here: http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/preview.php?s=29&whichevent=1567 (71 minutes)
and the pdf file is also available at the same address.








practical application of research on human and machine annotation of online documents to support reflective reading and collective sensemaking of online documents. We present an innovative research prototype which integrate a discourse analysis software (XIP) with a Web Annotation and Knowledge-Mapping tool (Cohere). We visualize an interactive scenario of use of the two integrated technologies in a unique user experience. This dynamic scenario will give an inspiring vision of future CSCW systems, which combine machine and human intelligence to enhance reasoning power.

This video has been presented to CSCW2012. Paper at:

De Liddo, A., Sándor, Á. and Buckingham Shum, S. (2012, In Press). Contested Collective Intelligence: Rationale, Technologies, and a Human-Machine Annotation Study. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Eprint: http://oro.open.ac.uk/31052
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it7T3Q2Ff0M

The presentation and article both cite the fact that machine analysis cannot work alone.  Especially when there is more than one annotation, or more than one document, the map that is produced is to large to make sense of without the human factor.  The explosion of the results needs the human to make sense of the machine results.  However, the machine results are readily and quickly available for the human to view and begin to corraborate scenarios. 

How to connect human and machine?  Cohere can be used to search for connections by analogy by consistent use, contrast, and so on.  The combination makes it possible to harness the power of machine analysis with human sensemaking, in the intersectional use of these tools.

*The Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) was set up in 1995 in recognition of the need for the Open University to be at the forefront of research and development in a convergence of areas that impacted on the OU's very nature: Cognitive and Learning Sciences, Artificial Intelligence and Semantic Technologies, and Multimedia. We chose to call this convergence Knowledge Media.