Session 3

Reading, writing, and publishing a massive online hypertext

Thursday, March 5, 2015 - 5:30 PM

CQUni Melbourne (Central Queensland Uni, Melbourne Campus)

Session 3 covers three things about the hypertext: (1) how it reflects scholarly/scientific understanding, (2) how this is implemented and may be published, and (3) my apps toolkit. Download draft presentation slides for Session 3 here.

Formalizing claims to scholarly and scientific knowledge

Scholars draw and build on prior knowledge assumed to be "reliable" to construct deeper/more comprehensive claims to describe/understand reality. For these newly constructed claims to be accepted as reliable knowledge they normally pass through at least three cycles of hypothesis and error elimination before formal publication: personal review and criticism in drafting, team review and criticism, and formal peer review. Claims that survive the third cycle of peer review are published in the formal literature and are normally considered to be reliable unless found to be unreliable in further use within the knowledge society.

See:

• Hall, W.P., Nousala, S. 2010. What is the value of peer review – some sociotechnical considerations. Second International Symposium on Peer Reviewing, ISPR 2010 June 29th - July 2nd, 2010 – Orlando, Florida, USA.
• Vines, R., Hall, W.P. 2011. Exploring the foundations of organizational knowledge. Kororoit Institute Working Papers No. 3: 1-39.
• Vines, R., Hall, W.P., McCarthy, G. 2011. Textual representations and knowledge support-systems in research intensive networks. (in) Cope, B., Kalantzis, M., Magee, L. (eds). Towards a Semantic Web: Connecting Knowledge in Academic Research. Oxford: Chandos Press, pp. 145-195.

What is hypertext? How have I used it in this book? How have I used it in associated presentations?

In the World Wide Web hypertext is used to create live links between web pages so one can easily navigate through a sizable fraction of the world of knowledge. My text uses these links in a various ways support and extend my narrative.

My tool-kit of applications

Almost anyone with a computer can use the same tools I used - especially if you wish to argue against my claims based on more evidence!

• MS Word (commodity) and PowerPoint or an HTML editor (free)
• Google: especially Scholar, Translate, Images and Videos (free)
• Access to journals via a university library subscription (it helps to belong or to have connections)
• Adobe Acrobat (optional)

The last big thing about writing long lasting hypertexts is knowing how to build robust links.

• Pick stable repositories
• Use the WayBack Machine (the Web Archive) where possible
• Hide the real links under TinyURL, BitLy, or text to keep the text readable.