knowledge and object production cascades- the telos case ioan rosca, phd. in educational technology...
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Knowledge and object production cascades- the TELOS
case
Ioan Rosca, PhD. in educational technology telecommunication, computer, information and instructional systems engineer
researcher and conceptual architect at LICEF, Teleuniversity, Montréal
CE’2006, Antibes, 19 September 2006
Object and knowledge production cascades
IE: managing chained procedures involving objects, persons and knowledge,
to produce knowledge
I Common goals: managing systems involving objects, persons and knowledge, to produce systems involving objects, persons and knowledge, to produce….and so on
CE: managing concurrent procedures, involving objects, persons and knowledge,
to produce objects
d combining planning
and emergence in adaptable scenarios
a combiningpersons and
objects in managing knowledge
f combiningtechnical,semantic and administrative
criteria, seeking interoparability
b combining sequencing and
parallelism in orchestrating
concurrence
c combining structures and
processes in a “4d”
systemic vision
II Common problems
IV TELOSfacilitates interoperation at 5 superposed levels:• resource aggregation• procedure reproduction• service distribution• knowledge propagation• systems production cascades
V LORNET• manage concurrent research• methodology:a recourseto the method• interdisciplinaryproblem space
III GEFO•pedagogical management of workflowsand management of pedagogical workflows•model lifecycle: from modeling to orchestration, with metafunctions•manage production cascades•manage procedure reproduction•adapt models by progressive concretizationusing a semantic layer for matching services
IE experimented solutions, interesting for CE
e combining analytic and pragmatic
approaches in treating complexity
CIE
SystE
SoftE
KnowE
I Concurrent Instructional Engineering
As engineer of telecommunication, computer, information and instructional systems, I have observed the strong correlation between the management of processes producing knowledge and objects.
• the concurrent engineering of any system involves a level of knowledge and learning management
• the development of instructional systems involves concurrent engineering methodsThe profound cause is the circular tie between acting and knowing: to do you must know, to
know- you must learn, to learn you must do etc. I have explored the relationship between semantic and instrumental engineering, in a series of
projects (note 1) searching answers for questions like:
"With what strategies and tools X should we equip technologists A and methodologists B,… which wish to supply with composition and management methods and instruments Y a public of authors C and managers D,… which organize instructional systems Z, in which a group of assistants E can instruct a group of learners F …so that they obtain an amelioration G of their competences in the knowledge domain H, … necessary to accomplish the performances I in the contexts J- … the global solution being optimal, according to criteria K, verifiable by the methods L".
a Combining persons and objects in managing knowledge • Socio-technical systems involve objects (instruments, documents) and human
participants; processes involving cooperating persons whose competences (made or not explicit) evolve in contact with support resources- ask for a concurrent semantic engineering
• Besides “input-output functions”, the systems’ behavior depends on their “state”; humans embody evolving knowledge- their internal transformation being…learning
• The modification of knowledge is produced by experience or by explicative collaboration (communication, co-action); the explanation is based on the cognitive consonance in assistant- assisted pairs; documents explain asynchronously, representing their author
• Besides the identification of a concept by its name (using implicitly the natural reference system of the language), we may employ semantic coordinates respective to knowledge domains, used as reference systems
• The characterization of the rapport vis a vis of an identified concept K (mastery level, qualitative abilities, explicative capacities) defines “competences”C ; their evolution (learning) may be the goal or the means of an activity;
• The explicitation of competence evolution may orientate the choice of support persons and documents; the optimization of resource allocation is facilitated by the indexation of participants, documents and activities- on a unique knowledge reference system
b Combining sequencing and parallelism in orchestrating concurrence• The management of concurrent activities requires tools for modeling and
orchestrating sequencing and cooperation- in ensembles composed by people and instruments
• When cooperation has an explicative goal (support, instruction), tools like CSCW, DSS, WFM must be enriched for CSCE (computer supported cooperative explanation):
- with a layer for the management of the involved knowledge and of the facilities (services) based on it (advising, resource matching, etc);
- with facilities for sharing operations to explain (double command controls, replicated architectures)
• The modeling and management of long evolutions- like the lifecycle of a system- or that of interlaced processes that compose a complex physiology- resort to meta-procedural aggregation, cascading procedural chains.
• The process chaining (concurrence) relies on sharing components (and sense), an object produced in a process (or an instructed participant) being usable as instrument/raw material (respectively guide) in another; apart the procedure linking as “phases” of a procedural chain (like in the recursive aggregation of composed resources) we also encounter links between a procedure and the guiding (support) meta-procedure
• The passage from the modeling of a workflow (flowchart) for a group of concurrent procedures to their orchestration on the base of the model (model enactment) is a meta-process that requires meta-management tools.
c Combining structures and processes in a “4d” systemic vision• The CE should approach the concurrence phenomena with a “4d” ontological vision
(Note): observing “systems in process”: lifecycles and fluxes• Instead of interlacing the design-development cycles of successive versions- typical for
reengineering- a longitudinal engineering vision (global in time) pursues the continuous transformation of the system (its life-evolution)
• Procedural models form an evolving whole with the reality that they represent or influence The model-reality loop can be treated with meta-models, that allow the management of models’ “life mode”
• The diffusion (propagation, phylogenesis) of knowledge in a community- can be seen as a cascade of explicative processes, but also as a reproductive act of the collective brain’s physiology
• The reproduction of objects is realized through production cascades (fluxes): a grand-mother system is used for the construction of mother systems that allow the conception of child systems. The (phylo)genetic vision asks the pursue of the circulation (and transformation) of material and cognitive entities along the productive chains.
• We can manage the procedure reproduction with metafunctions
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d Combining planning and emergence in adaptable scenarios
• concurrent engineering oscillates between careful planning and emergent decisions.
• the careful conceptual planning (with the early involvement of the aimed users) seek in CE was also considered in the TELOS vision document; the conceptual architecture is seen not only as a pre-condition of the product but as a part of it, the intellectual capital, less sensitive to technological modification; it have to be, however, continuously modified, reflecting the evolution of the target product’s physiology
• evolving along with the system it reflects and pilot, the LORNET “use cases” become instruments for management, assistance, demonstration and test
• the tension between the process emergence (for maximal adaptability) and planning (for maximal coherence) leads to mixed strategies such as: influencing by preparing support aggregates, observing and modeling emergent phenomena and reproducing them, using the models
• the management based on “functions” stresses on the adaptation of scenarios, through progressive concretization of abstract resources; the choice of concrete resources uses semantic matching services, based on the competence equilibrium around operations with various topologies (executor, assistant, instrument etc)
e Combining analytic and pragmatic approaches in treating complexity
• The CE analytical orientation to global planning confronts complexity. It can determine calculability bottlenecks (increase the costs of optimization efforts to a prohibitive level).
• Example. The competence management may encounter problems like: privacy rules, authority and responsibility for evaluations. The cumbersome declaring and updating efforts can bring to the abandon of competence tracking or to the choice of a thick descriptive granulation
• In such cases we resort to simplifications, according to a "pragmatic" orientation: get the most useful services through the most accessible means; seeking the optimization of the effort/result ratio.
• Example. A practical solution is the facilitation of the orchestration between the actors determining the evolution of the target system. The “functions” offer services for: information (inspiration,guiding); declaration (traces, annotations, memorization, piloting advise); resource manipulation; partner coordination; matching
f Combining technical, semantic and administrative criteriafor facilitating interoperability
• In the emergent mode , users search resources: semantically pertinent, technically usable, and administratively accessible
• In the orchestrated mode, designers do the same operations , finding resources to connect aggregate in prepared applications
• When the services and resources sources are distributed in different systems, concurrence poses interoperability problems
• In a space open to semantic and technical inter-operation, drawing frontiers for systems and segmenting processes can have administrative justifications (rights, responsibilities).
• LORNET production cascades (recursive aggregation chains) are segmented on administrative criteria:
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Manage concurrent research
• Coordinating the 6 LORNET teams poses concurrent research problems• What could have happened: the recourse to the method (projects aiming at the
construction of tools for the management of projects … manageable with the conceived tools); epistemological complications and opportunities for a spiral refinement- created by this circular situation
• What is happening: some contexts do not favor convergence…
• Projects that involve a team of experts from various disciplines require a communication language and an orchestration methodology: metaontologies for research contexts as semantic and pragmatic web applications
• An integrative approach would be necessary, one that would remake the unity of the observation's target, coagulating a model image. In my PhD thesis, I have tried to conceive a model for the (instrumented) explanation phenomena, one that would integrate the multitude of involved aspects, coagulating the observations extracted from a multitude of domains (psychology and cognitive sciences, communication and information sciences, semiotics and multimedia, logics and epistemology, sciences of education, computer telecommunications, theory of negotiation and decision, etc)- each having its own primitives, epistemology, language, paradigms, experience, rituals, models and priorities.
• my presence to the conference is a challenge towards this convergence
