Designs On Knowledge

There are many ways to explore the key ideas surrounding the topics of Cognition (learning, memory, personality, life of the mind, creativity, knowledge, AI, etc.). One of the ways I personally explore this space is by writing software to model, build, create and generally play around. Since 2009 I have worked on a family of software systems and methodologies collectively called “Designs on Knowledge” or DOK. DOK is designed to allow people to author and work with personal “cognitive spaces”: personal memory, knowledge, learning, experience, travel etc.

On a practical level I use a personal copy of DOK to create and manage my own “cognitive space.” I make heavy use of its electronic journal/diary, integrated semantic networks, notetaking and personal media collection tools: my copy currently contains over 100,000 entries (Cognitive Units) which are connected up in over 25,000 ways. It gives me an infinite number of ways to weave together, explore and create.

I am also growing a version of DOK to inform, track and, in some cases, generate the material on this website - to experiment with creating a unique shared “cognitive space” around the topics which appear here.

DOK is experimental and is not for sale. You can contact me if you are interested in the project (timothy.smith@outlook.com).

I think that’s all you need to know as a visitor to this site. If you find this kind of approach interesting you can read on a bit. DOK has a separate website and the link is provide below. Big Sky provides a shorter quick list of features of the project here ->

Well, it looks like you’re still reading. So here is a little more description:

DOK can be used to author Cognitive Spaces in the following ways:

  • Capture some of the valuable and interesting things that we encounter and create in our lives (knowledge, information, images, ideas, conversations, travel, dreams, books, classes … whatever). These are the unique cognitive units which populate a personal “cognitive space.”

  • Elaborate and deepen what we collect with processes of journaling, notetaking, reviewing.

  • Build and explore the relationships between those things - capture, create or discover the connections between them.

  • Generate ways to revisit, visualize, learn from and to create with what we capture. Explore what arises from connecting them up.

  • Taking all of this and expanding out to collect more and connect more and … keep going! 

Designs On Knowledge is designed to develop approaches, methodologies and software environments in service of personal knowledge and memory: learning (integrative, associative, inter-disciplinary, self-directed and life-long learning), note-taking, travel, autobiographical capture (written, oral, journaling, photography), creativity, self-expression and art.

DOK allows the user to design an individual and unique Personal Knowledge Agent. The most developed instance of a personal DOK Agent to date includes over 28,000 real world journal entries (diary entries; personal writings/reflections; notes from books, articles and classes) and 15,000 images. It has grown a semantic network which currently includes over 10,000 topics (concepts, people, places and things). These topics are logically related and mapped to each other in a tree of connections. This tree currently includes 25,500 connections. The semantic network arises from and describes the real-world entries at 117,000 points. In other words this Agent has grown to work with 10,000 topics which are woven together in a logical tree of 25,500 branches that interact with 28,000 entries in over 117,000 ways.

Much of the DOK project and many of the underlying concepts, software design implementations, training and user-experience methodologies, initially targeted for commercialization, are being "open-sourced" in Big Sky.

DOK implements and/or utilizes concepts in:

Human Memory, Attention and Personality

Knowledge Engineering

Rational Emotive Psychology, behavior modification, agent mediated feedback and mood attenuation

First Order and Propositional Logic

Personal Agents (Applied knowledge engineering, AI and Information Science in service of mediated interaction between internal and external knowledge)

UPS - Universal Position System (Similar to GPS with the added dimensions Attention-In-Relation-to Memory-Space, Current-Learning-In-Relation-To-External-Learning-Resources, Current-Progress-In-Relation-To-Target-Learning-Curriculum) [more ->]

Personal media capture and processing streams: focus on personal/family photography and autobiographical writings. Iterative mark-up and depth of processing assistance.

Software agent and paper based methodologies of interactive and iterative deepening of autobiographical data capture and self-exploration

A family of Mark-Up technologies (Personal Knowledge Markup Language), data-modeling and transforms to assist import and interaction between DOK personal knowledge representation with Augmented Learning and Tutoring software and Agents,  Virtual Reality, Virtual Worlds, Eye-Tracking, speech to text and machine learning, natural language processing. [More ->]

History: learning, learning-agent and interactive search visualization

Semantic networks: ontology and internal representations of knowledge

Intelligent Database Design

Tutoring Agents (Applied AI and IS in service of mediated and augmented learning over a lifetime)

Ephemera: Knowledge Driven Ephemeral Interface Design

Data modeling, modeling, data structures

Game design, gamification, edutainment

Agent assisted self-quizzing with longitudinal mediation and feedback

Human-Machine interface

Ecology of Mind

Mind-maps

Enriched Learning from travel, culture, language acquisition, experiential learning

The website can be found here: Designs On Knowledge (http://www.designsonknowledge.com/). Please note: It is not accessible from all areas of the world.