KM Tool Eval
By Danny Lord
Table of Contents
Tool Description
MindRaider is a "Semantic Outliner", it is designed as a way to organize knowledge in new and more customizable ways. The use of RDF triple graphs allows the user to correlate data and meta-data with thoughts. In order to do this, a user creates a "notebook" and then adds "concepts" to the notebooks. The concepts in a notebook can be organized flat/hierarchical/graph-based and even semantically. Additionally, a user can drag the nodes around the graph to re-draw the graph. The look ahead can be changed to hide nodes that are far away from the currently selected node and the graph can be zoomed in on. In order to illustrate how MindRaider can organize knowledge this evaluation is being written inside of MindRaider.
Addition of Knowledge
Knowledge is easily added to MindRaider.
There are two main ways to do this. The easiest way to do this is to use the
"Notebook Outline" which can be seen directly above the graph. To add a new node
to the graph you simply click the pencil icon, label the node and add an
annotation.
If you want to move the node into a different branch of the graph
you can drag/drop it into its spot. The other way to add knowledge is to select
the node in the graph right-click it and select "Add triplet.." which associates
an RDF triplet with the node.
Concepts can also be assigned attachments. An attachment allows the user to double-click and execute whatever the attachment may be (webpage, picture, directory, application, just about anything). Another feature of MindRaider is the "drag/drop" functionallity that allows a user to create attachments by simply dragging them (for instance a URL) to a concept where the attachment is then anchored.
A newly added node!
http://www.asdf.com
Organization of Knowledge
Knowledge is organized into a graph structure
that can be visually re-arranged. Look ahead and zoom allow a user to view as
much or little of the graph as they want at that moment.
In the Notebook outline the structure is organized hierarchically for a more structured navigation scheme. Additionally the user can control how much of the graph he/she sees at a time by using the look ahead and zoom features. This keeps the graph from becoming to cluttered and allows a greater organization of knowledge. There is also a "Model" menu item that may be used to create different graph models but there were no sample Models to test my knowledge base on and
MindRaider didn't like it when I tried to load a model that wasn't there.
Visualization of Knowledge
Visualization of knowledge the best feature
of MindRaider. The intuitive nature of navigating the graph of knowledge really allows MindRaider to visually display the notebook and concepts. MindRaider can also export the knowledge base using "OPML" or "TWiki".
Note - this document was generated using the TWiki export feature.
Example of OPML export .
Knowledge Retrieval
Knowledge is retrieved very easily. Navigating
through the nodes is just like following any graph and the use of attachments
and annotations clearly correlates the node/concept to the knowledge that it
represents. There is also a search feature that allows a user to search either
the concept labels or the concept annotations.
Usage of Knowledge
MindRaider doesn't directly perform any reasoning on the knowledge represented in a
notebook. The tool is more useful as a creative way to organize and visualize
knowledge. MindReader itself doesn't actually look into or utilize the knowledge encapsulated in the concepts.
Knowledge and Collaboration
MindRaider does not currently fully support collaboration; however, there is an
experimental feature called "URIQUA browser" which will be used to allow a user
to remotely connect to a resource. This is addressed on the MindRaider homepage.
Knowledge and Organizational Memory
Other Issues
MindRaider is in an alpha stage of development so several of the features do not work correctly yet. These include the experimental URIQUA and, as far as I can tell, the use of Models. Another feature that would be nice to have added is that when exporting the knowledge base using either TWiki or OPML to export URLs for
attachments of the 'web' type. I shouldn't have to go back and manually add the
links to an exported HTML file.
