WIKI-D article

WIKI-D DISCOURSE: wikis and wicked problems in digital research rhetoric

by Andrew Morrison, Synne Skjulstad, Idunn Sem, Jeremy Toussaint & Ole Smørdal

This article is connected to the WIKI-D project site. The site is a result of a large research programme KIM, funded by by the Research Council of Norway. The site and  article are instances of experimental, online research rhetoric. We show how a wiki tool may be applied in the design of a multimodal, mediational research rhetoric that takes up research outcomes as a central means of presenting a diversity of results and processes. The software Flash is used to mediate this online rhetoric.

The site may be viewed in the two modes: Relational and Linear. Our main focus in the article is the Relational mode. It includes a scrollable main window. The newest entry is at the front and a menu of parameters allows the user to select entries according to project, institution and outcomes. Each entry may be tagged; users may thus follow a meta-semantic mapping of entries. The linear mode is sequentially arranged with the latest entry at the top, with material presented in a typical blogroll.

In the Relational mode, this research article is listed under the menu Outcomes with the title 'WIKI-D' (on the far right of the list). Each entry for the article has the logo WIKI-D in purple to distinguish it from other contributions.

A number of macro discourse Themes have been selected to guide readers and commentators about the overall design and direction of the site. These are: Digital research rhetoric - Wicked problems - Wikis - Communication design - Computational design - Discussion - Directions.

These themes are taken up through entries made by the team of article authors. Each entry is also tagged with a Label. This  allows the readers to transverse entries according to semantic mark-up and not only entries related to the category Outcomes (in the menu bar in Relational mode) or an individual. Entries also allow Comments. These have been used by the authors of this article, as well as by colleagues who have commented on its content. Entries in the wiki have also been made using a variety of media types: still images, video and written text.

Taken together, these features and functionalities have been applied to investigate the design of a multimodal, multimedational digital research rhetoric.