Abstract
Knowing the locations of weak-to-strong topic shifts in a design history enables hierarchical segmentation of that history. The segmentation can be the basis of hierarchical visualization, that is, semantic zoom, and more, such as visualization of co-location, co-citation, and density of linking. This research shows that a fine-grained, sub-topical linkograph of a design conversation can be used to identify the locations of topic shifts in that conversation. A design conversation spanning 11 design meetings was captured; deictic (pointing-like) references were simulated by performing a sentence-by-sentence-level linkograph analysis of the conversation (that is, the conversation was not subjectively aggregated to topical segments prior to analysis); an algorithm used the linkograph to predict the locations of topic shifts; and the linkograph-predicted topic shift locations were compared with expected topic shift locations for the same conversation. The expected topic shift locations were defined as the heads of reference series (references to transcript units) that were made in a detailed report about the meetings. The model performed well (63–80 %) on large reference series (quartiles three and four) and poorly on small reference series (quartiles one and two, and singular references). Future research will work with linkographs that are automatically constructed by both text-based and graphic design systems and aim to develop a framework that can adapt to individual histories.
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Notes
When we use the term researcher, we refer to this participant-observation role.
Terminology: model: algorithm plus linkograph.
TechOne (2002–2011) was a first-year experiential program at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey campus that aimed to prepare students for academic success. “… a program for anyone who is interested in design and technology and their integration within everyday life… ” (2008 Jan: http://students.surrey.sfu.ca/techone).
“The Canadian Design Research Network (2005–2007) was a consortium of academics and partners from the private, public and non-governmental sectors aimed at improving design outcomes in Canadian society through research in design” (2008 Jan: http://www.cdrn.ca/).
Before the decimal point indicates the meeting. After the decimal point is an arbitrary rational number that permits the units to be ordered.
Calling text: A transcript unit that has one or more deep links.
Distillate: information that is culled, organized (concatenated, outlined, classified), and distilled. A distillate can replace the original information.
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Acknowledgments
This research would not have been possible without the support of the TechOne Program at SFU Surrey, and the course design team members whose meetings were recorded. This research was partially funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grants Program, the Graphics, Animation and New Media Network of Centres of Excellence, the BCCampus Online Program Development Fund, the NSERC Strategic Grants Program (through the Learning Objects Repository Network), and the Canadian Heritage New Media Research Networks Fund.
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Botta, D., Woodbury, R. Predicting topic shift locations in design histories. Res Eng Design 24, 245–258 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00163-012-0141-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00163-012-0141-1