Oxymoron, a Non-Distance Knowledge Sharing Tool for Social Science Students and Researchers

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1 Oxymoron, a Non-Distance Knowedge Sharing Too for Socia Science Students and Researchers Camie Bierens de Haan, Gies Chabrh2, Francis Lapique3, Gi Regev3, Aain Wegmann3 Institut Universitaire Kurt *UniversitC Coop&ative Sans 3Swiss Federa Institute of Biisch (IKB) Distance du Roannais (UCSDR) Technoogy (EPFL) Bramois 13 rue Brison EPFL-ICA 1950 Sion, Switzerand Roanne France CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerand camie.bdehaan@ikb.vsnet.ch avo.fr francis.apique@epf.ch gi.regev@epf.ch aain.wegmann@epf.ch ABSTRACT Oxymoron is a Word Wide Web based knowedge capitaization and sharing too that was conceived and deveoped by a mutidiscipinary team, comprised of adut education and distributed systems professionas from France and Switzerand. Oxymoron s aim is to support and faciitate the work of students and researchers in socia science by providing them with a system where they can contribute and obtain knowedge about the reevant readings in their fieds of interest. Keywords Groupware, Knowedge Management, Organizationa Learning, WWW, Socia Sciences, Bibiography, WWW, Methodoogy of research, Reading cards. INTRODUCTION Oxymoron, a rhetorica figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening sience and a mournfu optimist. From the Greek oxymoros, pointedy fooish: oxus, sharp + moros, fooish (American Heritage Dictionary 199 1) Whie paradox, humor, contradiction and a bit of gente provocation are the ingredients of an oxymoron, the authors of Oxymoron have chosen this name mainy because new names are needed to name new reaities. As paradoxica as a virtua reaity, Oxymoron is a too that not ony faciitates distance research but aso enabes cooperative work and the tutoring of students and researchers. Pemission to make digita or hard copies of a or part ot this work for persona or cassroom use is granted without I cc provided that copies arc not made or distributed for profit or commercia advantage and that copies bear this notice and the fu citation OII the first page. 1 0 copy otherwise, to repubish, to post on servers or to redistribute to ists. requires prior spcciic permission and/or a fee. GROUP YY Phoenix Arizona USA Copyright ACM /99/1 I...$5.00 The main idea behind Oxymoron is to create a user community of researchers through the capitaization of reading curds, which are an important and time expensive step in the most current methodoogy of research in socia sciences. The concept of a reading card is centra to the pedagogica approach described in this paper. Reading card was transated from the French expression fiche de ecture. We derived the term reading card from the popuar term of fash cards. Fash cards are used in schoos to hep students memorize facts. The Oxymoron reading cards are different from fash cards in the sense that they are mainy used to conceptuaize knowedge and to exchange it between students. Aso, ike fash cards, reading cards are created by the students themseves rather than by the teachers or tutors [8]. This paper introduces a pedagogica approach to adut education and a too deveoped to support that approach. We first present the origins and objectives of Oxymoron, its reated pedagogy, and stakehoders. We then expore its structure, functionaity and evoution. Finay, we expore the user interface and system architecture and end with a concusion and future work pans. The diagrams in this artice were made using the Unified Modeing Language, UML [19]. We use UML to describe both processes [ 1 I] and system architecture [7]. ORfGINS Oxymoron was generated during Gies ChabrC s 10 years experience tutoring working, non-university, aduts in the socia science fieds. In the course of the research process, the students are required to read and are asked to reaize reading cards. Unti now, these cards were usuay hand written, sometimes typed, (hopefuy) ent to companions and aways taken away when the process was competed. The need for a too, which woud make it possibe to share bibiographica resources and make them avaiabe without 219

2 distance and whenever needed, was evident: Internet made the dream come true. The first encounter occurred virtuay, on the Web, in eary spring It brought together the educators who conceived Oxymoron and the engineers who impemented it. Subsequenty, these peope who didn t know each other, were active in different working structures, discipinary fieds, professions, and cutures, met in face-to-face meetings. As it often happens, this origina creation is due to the commitment of a number of passionate peope. EPFL, Switzerand s top-eve university for engineering, has highy acute technica expertise for which it is in search of socia and cutura rooting. AFXB, (Switzerand and France) and UCSDR (France), two sma associative structures active in the heath care (a paiative care postgraduate education program within IKB, which is a sma young Swiss university) and in the fied of adut education in socia science, respectivey. IKB, as we as UCSDR, are directy interested in constructing open and distance earning toos for their students After two years of work, the institutions became aware of the importance of this margina founding and the trend is eading towards a formaization of the coaboration. Reated Work It is interesting to position Oxymoron with regard to distance earning toos and bibiography management systems. In our view, Oxymoron is neither an encycopedia, nor a ibrary fiing too, nor a usua distance-teaching too. It rather is a persona and inter-peer knowedge sharing and coaborative working too. It provides persona choices and views on specific iterature. Like distance earning toos, we pace the students (or researchers) at the foca point of the system but we do not have course syabus, modues, quizzes etc. Like bibiography management systems, we have a repository of references together with their quotes. But this repository is avaiabe through the Word Wide Web and is sef supported by the students through a principe of gift/counter-gift. The Oxymoron knowedge repository is not submitted to teachers vaidation and is used mainy as a support for the narrowing down of the materia to be read in view of the preparation of a thesis and for the identification of other researchers working in the same domain. The originaity of Oxymoron resides in the combination of a precise methodoogy of research with a Word Wide Web accessibe too and an interdiscipinary knowedge repository. Oxymoron can be best positioned in the knowedge management category. Like other knowedge management toos such as Ackerman s Answer Garden [] and British Teecom s Knowedge Sharing Environment [5]. Its objective is to ink peope with knowedge and with other peope. OBJECTIVES The principa ideas behind Oxymoron are directed towards individua persons, as we as towards the community: For individua uersons: Faciitate identification and contact with other researchers on specific themes. Faciitate finding of reevant iterature and reduce wandering and exporation time Save and share persona readings Become famiiar with pubishing one s works and issuing critica comment to others For the community: Create a networked cormnunity of researchers Create and share an interdiscipinary knowedge repository. Share a coection of informa knowedge in the form of fine-grained annotations of the repository Promote non-distance earning and tutored pedagogy Capitaization of knowedge is a serious probem for education and research institutions that want to create an institutiona memory, most notaby because researchers and students eave with their persona notes at the end of their project. The trace of their thinking trais [2] and construction processes are not retained by the institutions whose missions, by definition, go beyond those of its students. Oxymoron represents the possibiity to save and accumuate the resuts of the works of successive casses of students and researchers and thereby create a humus made out of the accumuation and union of a this materia. The sharing of research works fits into the framework of the ongoing mutation of the knowedge economy: The creation of coective inteigence is one of its foundations and cooperative work is one of the most promising avenues for tomorrow s pedagogy [ 131. Oxymoron offers, for adut students engaged in an education process eading to the creation of a thesis, the possibiity of communicating to their peers the resuts of their exporation of the iterature. In compensation for which, they obtain access to the works of a the other users of the too. Furthermore, Oxymoron encourages the pubication and sharing of thought processes, in construction, by way of fine-grained annotation [ 121. Annotations, by their potentiay informa nature may capture what Conkin cas informa knowedge [4]. The constitution of a network of researchers is geared toward the need for distance earning, for networking Distance earning impies a fow of knowedge from a knowing center towards a earning periphery. Nondistance earning designates a networked fow of knowedge combined with a different pedagogy [22] 220

3 cooperative partnerships in education, for changing the nature of pedagogy: in short, the need for formatting a new space for the emerging cybercuture that is aready competey rebuiding our economy of knowedge. Oxymoron is not a documentation center or a coection of vaidated works. It is a too for sharing knowedge and research processes. In short, Oxymoron aims to preserve the paths rather than the goas. Oxymoron is not a ibrary but a workshop where different toos are dispayed, as we as various sketches at different stages of work. This workshop is precisey the pace where actors and authors are expected and encouraged to meet. Oxymoron functions under the principe of gift/counter-gift: one may get to the repository on condition that one has previousy enarged it. The student s benefit shoud be obvious: for 3 reading cards given in your fied, you get access to at east 3 * n reading cards in different fieds, where n is the number of Oxymoron users. Every researcher knows what amount of saved time this represents, apart from comprehensive inter-discipinary possibiities. Oxymoron s intent is aso to encourage pubication and the exchange of ideas, stimuate cooperative work and train expression through writing. PEDAGOGY Oxymoron compies with and enhances a precise methodoogy of research defined by Quivy and Campenhoudt [21] that is broady spread throughout the French speaking socia sciences, Its structure unfods ike the different and successive stages of buiding a research (figure 1):. formuation of the research probem. anaysis of state of the art (i.e. bibiographica exporation). hypothesis formuation (concept definition). fied study b theoretica interpretation The formuation of a research probem enabes the definition of a number of key words, which, in turn, function as markers aowing the identification of other researchers interested in the same topic and the finding of reevant tites and quotations in the knowedge repository. Once they find the bibiographica entry they are ooking for, users can see if other users have aready added vaue to this particuar book or artice or if the tite has just been signaed as being an important reference. A reading card is not meant to prevent the students from reading the authors in fexto but to hep them find the right peope and the reevant ideas in reation to a number of specific themes. Users in search of documentation wi be abe to narrow down the set of books they need to read and understand by waking through the reading notes made by other users. Oxymoron s Gossary supports the hypothesis formuation (or concept definition) phase by dispaying a number of sourced definitions. This is not ony, generay speaking, indispensabe to know what one is taking about in a research process, but aso how the notion has recenty been evoving. More precisey, it aso heps in the construction of the fied study too aowing the singing out of the necessary dimensions, indicators and indices. Once the fied study has been conducted and the coected materia cassified, reading cards are again hepfu in the construction of the theoretica interpretation. n&age profies & keywxd I 1 manage keywords, references & reading cards I 1 I concept definition 1 Figure 1. Reationship between Oxymoron and research methodoogy 221

4 STAKEHOLDERS Oxymoron is an extranet too that any number of institutes can share to capitaize knowedge. Figure 2 shows the different stakehoders. Figure 2. Oxymoron Stakehoders 2 tutor x Institutions Institutiona tutoring seems to be the indispensabe condition to insure quaity, as we as quantity, of content in the repository. An institution warrants not ony a certain eve of thought but aso the amount of cards in a certain discipinary fied, which is the main source of interest for users. The kinds of institutes that are ikey to benefit from Oxymoron are adut education, higher education and research institutes. Markus and Kei [ 161 found that the introduction of a new information system, even a we designed one, that is done without a business process reengineering is ikey to fai. Thus, organizations shoud not contempate adopting Oxymoron without anayzing their existing pedagogy and processes and the way the introduction of Oxymoron may change them. Access to Oxymoron is granted through two conditions : a yeary registration fee - the amount of which is yet to be determined - and the nomination of at east one institutiona tutor. Tutors Within an adut education institution, the Oxymoron tutor is in charge of introducing the students to the rues and benefits of Oxymoron and instructing them. He or she wi aso have to encourage participation and assist with the first procedures, and cope with the subsequent upsurging resistances and discouragements facing new technoogy. The tutor personay verifies the format of every student s fust entries and deivers passwords as soon as the required amount of entries is competed. He or she may be joined without distance in case of a methodoogica or a technica probem. Once (or more, experience wi show) a year, he or she wi have to check the knowedge repository created by his/her students and do some ceaning up under supervision of a number of discipinary experts. Tutoring can aso be done off-ine, through face-to-face meetings and teephone cas. We have impemented the forum and chat services in Oxymoron to hep tutors to carry out their tasks and offset the cost of traveing and phone cas. But we must admit that our students are not yet reay famiiar with these means of communication. Search Engine I Forum 0 Oxymoron Annotation Too. t I) f Profie - Discipine Keyword Reading Card Definition Persona Information Figure 3. Overa Structure of Oxymoron t Signature 222

5 Students Who is the idea Oxymoron user? In principe, every adut student engaged in a process that requires reading. In reaity, an Oxymoron user is the socia science student who. has a computer and is abe to type,. is connected to the Word Wide Web at home,. perceives the need for sharing knowedge, that is to say, is ready to formaize and separate him/hersef his/her persona work with the goa of accessing a great amount of shared work. STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONALITY Overa Structure Figure 3 shows the main eements that compose Oxymoron. We can identify the foowing components: 0 The profies contain the description of a the peope registered in Oxymoron.. The Keywords ead to the references.. The Definitions contain definitions of terms that are added by the users. Each definition must be referenced by the source from which it was obtained (usuay a book, dictionary encycopedia etc).. The reading cards are the main knowedge repository within Oxymoron and are expained ater in this section. The forum and chat components are standard communication toos avaiabe to Oxymoron users. These toos aow some degree of coaboration and tutoring to take pace in between face-to-face meetings. Reading Cards The structure of a reading card is shown in figure 4. As you can see, it contains the standard eements found in a book such as the tite, summary, tabe of contents, author bibiography, and biography. The two other eements are externa to the book itsef and are the critiques of the book, which may come from any other source, and the coection of reading notes. The heart of a reading card is this coection of notes which are the actua quotations containing the most important ideas as viewed by the user who entered them. Each note contains 3 fieds: 1. The keywords or themes the quote is associated with 2. The page number where the note is ocated 3. The actua quote extracted, as is, from the book Each reading card has a signature that eads to the person who created it. Each reading note aso has a signature that identifies its owner. The reason for this is that mutipe users can add notes to an existing card. Thus the coection of notes is not the property of any one person but is, potentiay, the coective work of many peope. Attached to each note is a coection of annotations added by note owners or any other user of Oxymoron. Reading notes are created manuay by users. Therefore they are subjective. Two users wi view different quotes as being the most important. Reading notes shoud not be viewed as objective summaries of a book but rather as the persona view of the users who created them. As reading notes are added to a reading card by different users, we may find the whoe book in these notes. It coud aso be that the notes woud concentrate on some chapters or pages of the book, in which case it wi ceary show that these chapters or sections are reay important, at east to the community of users who have created the notes. I I I I I I Author Tite Signature - Bibiography Summary -0 Reading Card O- 6 Reading Note t-i Author Biography signature I, I J Keyword Page Number <<Themes> I I I I I I Figure 4. Structure of a Reading Card Quota Annotation Goba Search One of the essentia components of Oxymoron is its powerfu search faciity. The search faciity uses a search engine, which is tighty couped with the underying Informix database. It offers a search capabiity that enabes users to find partia text strings within documents. Searches can be performed on a the contents of Oxymoron or imited to certain categories such as reading notes or bibiographies. The document conversion service, described beow, heps too because it aows for the indexing of a documents regardess of their origina format so that they are avaiabe to be searched. Support for Users Existing Working Mode The first version of Oxymoron was a technoogy or deveoper centered version, deveoped directy from a set of specifications and user interface drawings with itte or no concern to the way the user community was actuay going to use the system. The second version was deveoped after I 223

6 the initia fied tests indicated that users were having probems contributing meaningfu quotes to the system. Fied investigation found that users were reuctant to use the forms that were designed to contribute quotes. The probem with the forms was not that they were bady designed, but that home users woud not stay on-ine for hours whie they read their books and extracted quotes directy into the Oxymoron forms. Rather, they woud buid their quotes ists off-ine with a word processor. Later, when connecting to Oxymoron they were faced with the tedious activity of copying and pasting the quotes from their Word processor into the forms and submitting them one quote at a time. The users baked and started sending their word processor documents to the support staff that went through this painfu process on behaf of the users. In addition, we aso needed a soution that woud aow users to add book summaries, tabe of contents and the ike as nicey formatted HTML documents. Our user community made up of non-technica peope, it was out of the question to ask them to write HTML code or even ask them to use other appications such as HTML editors. The ess they had to earn the better. We thus needed to offer a twofod soution: 1. Automaticay insert quotes into the database. HTML pages are ater synthesized from the database content for dispay in a browser. 2. Accept word processor documents to construct the different sections of a reading card and convert them into HTML for dispay. The introduction of these automatic conversion toos substantiay simpified the way users added content to Oxymoron. As a resut, we saw an immediate upsurge in the eve of activity and content creation in Oxymoron. Making the transition from the first version to the second, we removed the HTML forms and repaced them with forms accepting word processor fies ony. Thus, the use of a word processor to add information into Oxymoron was made mandatory. This, ater, was reveaed to be a imitation and we now pan to have both HTML forms and word processor forms in the next version. Support for Offine Work Retrospectivey, we found that this new functionaity and user interface aso aowed us to easiy support mobie users. It is very simpe to add materia to Oxymoron since users can create or edit their reading notes and other materia on their notebook computers in the pane or train and ater upoad the fies when they connect to the Internet. USER INTERFACE When entering Oxymoron, users are presented with a vertica navigation bar in the eft frame. This bar gives access to a of the main Oxymoron sections: First the Oxymoron profie book (or yeow pages), then the reading cards, the keywords and references, th2 definitions and discipines and finay the toos (search engine, chat room, forum). Profies When a new user first enters Oxymoron, they are requested to fi out their profie. The profie is one of the centra eements in Oxymoron because it aows peope to get to know each other. The centra piece of a profie entry is the research question the user is working on and the keywords associated with the person s work. These entries give some indication to other users about information that may be found in Oxymoron and the keywords needed to find it. Reading Cards The user can seect to browse ( consuter ) the reading cards, which is the most used feature, or to add a reading card. When browsing the reading cards, the user is presented with the ist of cards avaiabe in Oxymoron sorted by author. Cicking on the tite of the book brings up the corresponding reading card. The book summary is dispayed and above it the reading card navigation bar (figure 5). This bar gives access to the different sections of a reading card: the author biography and bibiography, the tabe of contents, the quotes (notes de ecture), and critiques. The biography, bibiography, and tabe of contents headings are foowed by a browse ( consuter ) or add ( ajouter ) ink depending on whether a user aready fied out the section. The quotes and critiques sections are foowed by a browse ( consuter ) ink is the section has any content and an add ( ajouter ) button because their content is aways evoving and can be added to. [biographic: consuter bibiographic: douter pan: consuter notes de ecture: consuted ajouter critique(s): aiouter Figure 5. Reading card navigation bar Quotes The heart of the Oxymoron knowedge repository is the coection of quotes. When the user chooses to browse the quotes, he or she is presented with a tabe where each ine contains a quote (figure 6). Each quote carries a signature composed of the name of the person who added the quote aong with the date when the quote was added or modified. The name of the person is a ink to the person s profie entry in the Oxymoron profie book. The person browsing the quotes can immediatey see the profie of the person who added a quote, as we as the thesis they are working on, the research question they are preoccupied with, etc. This is an essentia functionaity that aows peope to ink to one another. The owner of the quote (i.e. the person who added the quote) aso has a modify ink avaiabe. This aows him or her to make changes to each quote independenty. An annotation ink is aso avaiiabe. It aows Oxymoron users to comment on any quote - be they the owners of quote or not (see Quotes Annotations). 224

7 j---ll--"."~ 1 M&ode -.&-.,.~L..-"""" Note ce ecture avec annotations i.- Figure 6. Exampe of a quote Quotes Annotations The rues of Oxymoron state that quotes must be the exact excerpts of the textbook. Users are not aowed to enter their own views in a quote. However, with the integration of the annotation service, we can offer users the abiity to comment on a quote without changing the origina. Within the ce of each quote there is, initiay, an annotate ink ( Annoter ) (figure 6). When the user foows this ink, the annotation service dispays the quote within its annotation form (figure 7). This form aows the user to view other peope s annotations and add their own. The annotation service supports annotations of type text, audio and video. Users can annotate a quote with the audio or video track of an interview of the author. Fin des armies 40. Une vingtaine de personnes, dont Jacques Robin, Hem-i Atan, Jacques AttaLi, Hem-i Labor-it, Edgar Morin, Miche Serres Notes JRetour 6 ensembe des notes: [-Fin des wmies 601 Pourquoi estce important? &gevdkdq Figure 8. An annotated quote ARCHITECTURE AND IMPLEMENTATION Oxymoron is a muti-tier, distributed system. The main Web server, database, annotation service, text search engine, and IRC server are depoyed on a Unix server. The document conversion service is depoyed on a PC running Windows NT and IIS 4.0 (figure 9). J Fin des ann6es 60 Le texte doit compter au mains 2 caractkes de sdparatioq LItusruxIrGr Gea" It& pas JG h~~~shrfta~".i1 y a aussi LU Pourquoi est-ce important? Annoter 1 Figure 7. A quote within the annotation form Once an annotation has been added to a quote, the quote is dispayed with its annotation set (figure 8) and an annotated quote ink ( citation annotke ) is added to the quote. Users can choose to reate ony to the exact quotes and ignore the attached annotations or they can browse the annotations by foowing this ink. Figure 9. Overa Architecture Word Processing Integration As expained above, we integrated word processors and more specificay Microsoft Word into Oxymoron for two different tasks: 1. To insert quotes into the database, we deveoped a too to automaticay extract text from Word processors tabes and insert them into the database 2. To coect summaries, tabe of contents, bibiographies, and in genera any piece of text of some ength, we deveoped an automatic Word to HTML conversion service The foowing is an overview of the technoogies we used for that integration Automatic Word Processor to HTML Conversion Service We use the MS-Word ActiveX component to impement the conversion service. 225

8 Figure 10. HTML Conversion scenario Automaticay converting a document of a format supported by MS-Word is actuay as simpe as instantiating a Microsoft Word appication component, instructing it to open the desired fie, and save it as HTML. The above processing can be done from any deveopment patform that supports ActiveX, such as Active Server Pages and Visua Basic. The main Web site hosting Oxymoron resides on a Unix server. Since we coud not run Microsoft Word on that patform, we needed a way of inking the Windows and Unix patforms: 1. HTTP aowed us to invoke requests for conversion from the Unix machine to the Windows machine 2. A common disk space is shared between the 2 patforms through the institute LAN without having to transport the documents back and forth through HTTP The conversion service was depoyed on a Windows NT machine running an IIS Web server and MS-Office 97. Prior to invoking the conversion service, a PERL script on the Unix machine saves the incoming fie on the shared disk space (figure 9). The Unix machine uses the service through an HTTP invocation of an ASP fie. The fie name to process is given as a parameter of the ASP invocation. The ASP fie cas the MS-Word ActiveX component and requests that the fie be opened and then saved as HTML. The conversion operation is triggered when the user cicks the Upoad button in one of the many Oxymoron forms that accept word processor fies as input (creation of a reading card tabe of content for exampe). After having specified the oca path of a document. The document is first saved in a BLOB in the Informix database and then in a fie on the shared disk space. The conversion ASP fie is caed and, upon competion, the resuting HTML fie is stored in the database and indexed so that it can be searched for (figure 10). Modifying a Document As the origina document is saved in a BLOB in the database, we simpy send it back to the user when the user wants to modify the document. The document is sent with a MIME type set to appication/msword so that MS-Word is aunched on the user s machine and the requested document is opened. Whie the document is oaded, the modify document form is dispayed in the browser window. To compete the modification task the user needs to save the document ocay and upoad it again to the server through the modify document form. Supported Document Formats Using MS-Word as a document converter doesn t mean that the ony fie format we support is MS-Word. In fact we support any fie format that MS-Word supports. This incudes popuar formats such as Rich Text Fie (RTF), Word Perfect 5.x and 6.x and text fies. We aso support Macintosh MS-Word fies. Insertion of Quotes in the Database The process of inserting quotes is somewhat simiar to the HTML conversion in that the upoaded fie is saved on the shared disk space and the Per1 script on the Unix server cas an ASP fie on the NT machine. The ASP fie, however, processes the fies quite differenty. It assumes that the Word document contains a tabe with 3 fieds in each row. The structure of the tabe is fixed and is dispayed beow: Theme Page Number Quote The text is extracted from the ces of the tabe and each row is sent back to the Unix machine by invoking an HTTP request that inserts the ces into the database. The process repeats as ong as there are rows in the tabe. Modifying Quotes Modifying quotes is as simpe as changing any other word processor originated document. Here, ony the text of the quote is sent back to the user. Annotation Service ntegration In parae with the Oxymoron project we deveoped Medium, a Web based fine-grained annotation too [12] that we converted into an annotation service that can be accessed through HTTP requests (figure 9). When the user cicks on the annotate ink associated with a quote, the annotation service is caed with the text of the quote as a parameter. The annotation server sends back an HTML page containing the requested quote together with its annotations. This HTML page contains inks that enabe the user to expore the annotations and modify them if the user is the author of the annotations. 226

9 CONCLUSIONS Oxymoron is an efficient and robust Word Wide Web appication that supports a pedagogica method for adut education in the fied of the socia sciences and paiative care. It is buit on an origina architecture inking mutipe technoogica patforms to ower the barrier of entry and aow desktop integration with the Word Wide Web. Students at AFXB and UCSDR tested Oxymoron during the ast year. Even though the second version of Oxymoron supports the users way of working much better, it was not systematicay used by the students. We attribute this to 2 main causes: Lack of integration of Oxymoron into the curricuum 0 Psychoogica barriers to the use of a new too As described in [ 161, a too such as Oxymoron cannot be successfuy introduced in an organization without a goba rethinking of the business processes and the fit of the too to these processes. Hence, Oxymoron shoud be an integra part of the curricuum and it shoud match, more cosey, the users way of creating reading cards, as we as educators requirements. We now have a commitment by IKB to fuy integrate, with adequate tutoring, Oxymoron into severa of next year s curricua and we are in the phase of restructuring and improving Oxymoron foowing comments from users and educators from a number of institutions where Oxymoron was presented. We aso want to proceed with an evauation of its usage patterns and the barriers to its more frequent use. We intend to use contextua inquiry techniques {91 to understand how users use Oxymoron in their homes. We intend to pursue the deveopment of Oxymoron in the foowing directions:. To hep Oxymoron users find their way within a muti-discipinary knowedge repository, we are considering automaticay cross referencing a keywords to their, potentiay, mutipe definitions and references. Over time we wi face the probem of visuaizing massive amounts of quotes, reading cards, keywords etc. We need to move beyond simpy dispaying ists of reading notes, keywords, annotations etc. We are exporing the feasibiity of offering a concept map visuaization toos that wi hep users to navigate within the knowedge repository. We are ooking into offering information fetching services through the use of inteigent agents that wi coect information on the Web on behaf of Oxymoron users in users specified interest areas. Whie Oxymoron is used today ony in the socia science and heath care fieds it can be used in a technica research context as we in order to capitaize knowedge gained through reading conference and journa artices as we as books. The Oxymoron main page is avaiabe, on the Web, at REFERENCES 1. Ackerman, M. (1994) Augmenting the Organizationa Memory: A Fied Study of Answer Garden, Proceedings of CSCW 94, R. Furuta and C. Neuwirth (Eds), The Association for Computing Machinery, New York, pp Bush, V., As We May Think, The Atantic Monthy, Juy Carre, P., Moisan, A., Poisson, D., L auto-formation, Puf, Paris, Conkin, J., Designing Organizationa Memory: Preserving Inteectua Assets in a Knowedge Economy, Davies, J., Stewart, S., Weeks, R., Knowedge Sharing over the Word Wide Web, Proceedings of WebNet98, (AACE, Charottesvie, VA, 1998). Desroche, H., Entreprendre d apprendre. Apprentissage 3, Ed. Ouvrieres, Paris, D Souza, D.F. and Wis A.C., Objects, components and Frameworks With UML: The Cataysis Approach. Addison-Wesey Object Technoogy Series, Addison- Wesey, Eco, U., Come si fa una tesi di aurea. Le materie umanistiche. Miano, Bompiani, Engebart, D. C., Toward High-Performance Organizations: A Strategic Roe for Grouware in Proceedings of Groupware 92, (San Jose, CA, August 1992), Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA. Hotzbatt, K., Hugh, B., Contextua Design: A Customer-Centered Approach to System Designs, Morgan Kaufman, San Francisco, CA, Hruby, P., Structuring Specification of Business Systems with UML (with an Emphasis on Workfow Management Systems). in OOPSLA 98 Workshop: Business Object Design and Impementation IV: From Business Objects to Compex Adaptive Systems, (Vancouver, B.C. 1998). Lapique, F., Regev, G., An Experiment Using Document Annotations in Education Proceedings of WebNet98, (AACE, Charottesvie, VA, 1998), L&y, P., L Inteigence coective. Pour une anthropoogie du cyberespace, La Decouverte, Paris, Levy, P., Cybercuture. Rapport au Consei de Europe, Odie Jacob, Paris, X & XI, 1997, pp

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