Here's the presentation I gave on Friday, July 9th 2010 at Wikimania in Gdansk, Poland. The presentation is about a tool developed by researchers at the University of Washington to aid in summarization, sensemaking and active listening in threaded online discussions.
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Wikimania2010 - Reflect: a tool for discussion summarization and active listening
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2. and active listeningJonathan Morgan, Travis Kriplean, Alan Borning, Lance Bennett, DeenFreelon, David MacDonald and Michael Toomim
3. Reflect Who We Are What We Think Introducing Reflect Further Reading/Shameless Plugs
4. Who We Are Interdisciplinary project at UW CompSci, InfoSci, PoliSci, UX Design Create tools to support online deliberation + civic engagement http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/travis/reflect/
5. Who We Are Reflect is the brainchild of this man See also Travis Kriplean, “Tools for Scaling Consensus,” Wikimania 2009
6. Reflect Who We Are What We Think Introducing Reflect Further Reading/Shameless Plugs
28. learning tool3/10/2010 at 4:22 PM by AlanB What points does AlanBmake? The design is not meant to encourage people to shoot each other down. Instead, people are encouraged to add bullet points that summarize what someone else is trying to say. It helps show that people are listening. And reflecting on what is being said.
33. create full summaries3/10/2010 at 4:22 PM by AlanB What points does AlanBmake? The design is not meant to encourage people to shoot each other down. Instead, people are encouraged to add bullet points that summarize what someone else is trying to say. It helps show that people are listening. And reflecting on what is being said.
48. Proposed Study Analyze the impact of LiquidThreads + Reflect on Wiki-based deliberation Quantitative (session data, mouse clicks) and qualitative (content analysis, surveys) techniques Currently a Strategic Plan proposal: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Discussion_Interface_Study
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50. Wikimania Workshop, “Practical Tools for Academic Research” Sunday, 2:30pmJonathan Morgan, Travis Kriplean, Alan Borning, Lance Bennett, DeenFreelon, David MacDonald and Michael Toomim
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52. The presenter attempts to answerJonathan Morgan, Travis Kriplean, Alan Borning, Lance Bennett, DeenFreelon, David MacDonald and Michael Toomim
Notas do Editor
Reflect is the name of both the tool and the team that works on it. The reflect team is a (very!) interdisciplinary project group at UW that focuses on designing tools to make it easier to to conduct deliberative discussions in online spaces. Our goal is to design tools that support sensemaking, decision making and group deliberations across a variety of media, platforms and genres, including Wikis. Reflect is one of those tools.
I feel that I should disclose before I continue that although I am a true believer in reflect and all that it represents, I am not the author of this tool. All the credit for Reflect should really go to my colleague Travis Kriplean, a PhD candidate in Computer Science and Engineering at UW, who conceived and developed what I’m going to show you today. There’s Travis’s glamour shot up there.
However, we think that there are still fundamental issues that are inherent in the threaded discussion paradigm. The first of these is the sensemaking challenge that threaded discussions present to readers. Whether you as a reader are just entering a lengthy discussion already in progress, or just trying to keep track of what’s been said in a conversation you’re actively engaged in, a long string of comments can be overwhelming. Another problem is the lack of actual communication in many of these threads. People are often more interested in standing on their own soapbox and announcing their own opinion than reflecting on, responding to or making a reasoned assessment of what other people have posted. And this phenomenon is not limited to places like YouTube—it also happens on Wiki, especially on the lengthy conversation threads attached to controversial pages. (where deliberation is needed most)These two related problems are contributing factors to the low deliberative quality of many (most?) online threaded discussions.
We take the stance that focusing on a few key design choices meant to address the specific problems of sensemaking and active listening can subtly encourage “good” deliberative behavior without creating new barriers to participation. Reflect can help bridge the feedback gap between listener and speaker without overly distracting the discussion.
![Reflect ,[object Object]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/wikimaniareflect-100714122947-phpapp02/85/Wikimania2010-Reflect-a-tool-for-discussion-summarization-and-active-listening-1-320.jpg)
