Digital Cognitive Technologies E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 733

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Digital Cognitive Technologies is an interdisciplinary book which assesses the socio-technical foundations of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which are at the core of the "Knowledge Society." This book addresses eight major issues, analyzed by authors writing from a Human and Social Science and a Science and Technology perspective. The contributions seek to explore whether and how ICTs are changing our perception of time, space, social structures and networks, document writing and dissemination, sense-making and interpretation, cooperation, politics, and the dynamics of collective activity (socio-informatics).

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Foreword: The New Manufacture of HSS

Introduction

PART I: Can ICT Tell History?

Chapter 1: Elements for a Digital Historiography

1.1. Introduction

1.2. Historiography facing digital document

1.3. ICTS contributions to historiography methods

1.4. Conclusion

1.5. Bibliography

Chapter 2: “In Search of Real Time” or Man Facing the Desire and Duty of Speed

2.1. Introduction

2.2. Rate, speed and ICT: emergence of a new social temporality

2.3. Speed: stigma of a new socio-economic and socio-cultural reality

2.4. Conclusion

2.5. Bibliography

Chapter 3: Narrativity Against Temporality: a Computational Model for Story Processing

3.1. Background: problems of temporality representation in social sciences

3.2. A theoretical framework for processing temporality

3.3. A computational model for story processing

3.4. Conclusion

3.5. Bibliography

PART II: How can we Locate Ourselves within ICT?

Chapter 4: Are Virtual Maps used for Orientation?

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Orientation context

4.3. The flat sphere

4.4. Orientating

4.5. Nature of the map

4.6. The virtual map

4.7. Map territory

4.8. Program of the map

4.9. Map instruction

4.10. Bibliography

Chapter 5: Geography of the Information Society

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Technological determinism of the facts

5.3. From the “end of geography” to the “territorialization of ICT”

5.4. The trivialization of ICT in territories in industrialized countries

5.5. Conclusion

5.6. Bibliography

Chapter 6: Mapping Public Web Space with the Issuecrawler

6.1. Introduction

6.2. The death of cyberspace

6.3. Tethering websites in hyperspace through inlinks

6.4. The depluralization of the Web

6.5. The Web as (issue) network space

6.6. Conclusion

6.7. Bibliography

PART III: ICT: a World of Networks?

Chapter 7: Metrology of Internet Networks

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Problems associated with Internet measurement

7.3. Measurement techniques

7.4. Characteristics of Internet traffic

7.5. Conclusion

7.6. Bibliography

Chapter 8: Online Social Networks: A Research Object for Computer Science and Social Sciences

8.1. Introduction

8.2. A massively relational Internet

8.3. Four properties of the social link on the Internet

8.4. The network as a mathematical object

8.5. Structure of networks and relational patterns

8.6. Conclusion

8.7. Bibliography

Chapter 9: Analysis of Heterogenous Networks: the ReseauLu Project

9.1. Introduction

9.2. The ReseauLu project

9.3. Conclusion

9.4. Bibliography

PART IV: Computerized Processing of Speeches and Hyperdocuments: What are the Methodological Consequences?

Chapter 10: Hypertext, an Intellectual Technology in the Era of Complexity

10.1. The hypertextual paradigm

10.2. Cognitive activity and evolution of textual support

10.3. The invention of hypertext

10.4. Hypertext and databases

10.5. Automatic hypertextualization

10.6. The paradigm of complexity

10.7. Writing of the complex

10.8. Hypertextual discursivity

10.9. Conclusion

10.10. Bibliography

Chapter 11: A Brief History of Software Resources for Qualitative Analysis

11.1. Introduction

11.2. Which tool for which analysis?

11.3. Conclusion: taking advantage of software

11.4. Bibliography

Chapter 12: Sea Peoples, Island Folk: Hypertext and Societies without Writing

12.1. Introduction

12.2. A concrete and non-linear approach

12.3. Type of hypermedia modeling and implementation

12.4. The construction of attractors and their basins

12.5. Conclusion

12.6. Bibliography

PART V: How do ICT Support Pluralism of Interpretations?

Chapter 13: Semantic Web and Ontologies

13.1. Introduction

13.2. Semantic Web as an extension of current Web

13.3. Use of ontologies

13.4. Metadata and annotations

13.5. Diversity of ontologies debated

13.6. Conclusion

13.7. Bibliography

Chapter 14: Interrelations between Types of Analysis and Types of Interpretation

14.1. Introduction

14.2. ICT and choice within the general outline of HSS research

14.3. Questions relating to initial data and presentation of results

14.4. Choice of analysis methods and general outline

14.5. Methodological choices, schools of thought and interlanguage

14.6. Conclusion

14.7. Bibliography

Chapter 15: Pluralism and Plurality of Interpretations

15.1. Introduction

15.2. Diversity of interpretations

15.3. Interpretations and experimental set-ups

15.4. Exploratory analysis and iterative construction of grids of categories

15.5. Categorization process from a grid

15.6. Validation by triangulation of methods

15.7. Conclusion

15.8. Bibliography

PART VI: Distance Cooperation

Chapter 16: A Communicational and Documentary Theory of ICT

16.1. Introduction

16.2. Transactional approach of action

16.3. Transactional flows: rhizomatic and machinery configuration

16.4. ICT and documents: transition operators between situations of activity within a transactional flow

16.5. Four classes of documents within the information system

16.6. ICT status in the coordination and regulation of transactional flows

16.7. Conclusion: document for action and distributed transactions

16.8. Bibliography

Chapter 17: Knowledge Distributed by ICT: How do Communication Networks Modify Epistemic Networks?

17.1. Introduction

17.2. ICT and distributed cognition

17.3. Mailing lists as a distributed system

17.4. Evolution of communication networks

17.5. Epistemic networks and discussion networks

17.6. Conclusion

17.7. Bibliography

Chapter 18: Towards New Links between HSS and Computer Science: the CoolDev Project

18.1. Introduction

18.2. Towards new links between HSS and computer science: application to AT

18.3. Generic links between AT and computer science: application in CoolDev

18.4. Discussion: towards new developments

18.5. Bibliography

PART VII: Towards Renewed Political Life and Citizenship

Chapter 19: Electronic Voting and Computer Security

19.1. Introduction

19.2. Motivations of electronic voting

19.3. The different modes of electronic voting

19.4. Prerequisites for the establishment of an Internet voting system

19.5. Operation of an Internet voting system

19.6. Prevention of threats

19.7. The different technical approaches

19.8. Two examples of realizations in France

19.9. Bibliography

Chapter 20: Politicization of Socio-technical Spaces of Collective Cognition: the Practice of Public Wikis

20.1. Introduction

20.2. Forms of ICT politicization

20.3. Writing on wikis: a practice of deliberative cognition

20.4. Conclusion: the stakes of a cognitive democracy

20.5. Bibliography

Chapter 21: Liaising using a Multi-agent System

21.1. Introduction

21.2. Motivations

21.3. Game theory

21.4. The principles

21.5. Multi-wizard system

21.6. Conclusion

21.7. Bibliography

PART VIII: Is “Socio-informatics” Possible?

Chapter 22: The Interdisciplinary Dialog of Social Informatics

22.1. Introduction

22.2. Identifying procedures for configuring collective action

22.3. Analyzing socio-technical change

22.4. Improving the design of computer applications

22.5. Bibliography

Chapter 23: Limitations of Computerization of Sciences of Man and Society

23.1. Introduction

23.2. The scientific approach in sciences of man and society

23.3. Complexity and intricacy of mathematical and interpretative approaches

23.4. Difficulties in application of methods

23.5. Quantification and loss of information

23.6. Some dangers of wrongly controlled socio-informatics

23.7. Socio-informatics and social technology

23.8. Bibliography

Chapter 24: The Internet in the Process of Data Collection and Dissemination

24.1. Introduction

24.2. Construction of the questionnaire

24.3. Administration of the questionnaire

24.4. Dissemination of results

24.5. Conclusion

24.6. Bibliography

Conclusion

Postscript: Computer Science and Humanities

List of Authors

Index

First published 2010 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Adapted and updated from Humanités numériques volumes 1 et 2 published 2007 in France by Hermes Science/Lavoisier © LAVOISIER 2007

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd 27-37 St George’s Road London SW19 4EU UKJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030 USAwww.iste.co.ukwww.wiley.com

© ISTE Ltd 2010

The rights of Bernard Reber and Claire Brossaud to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Humanités numériques. English

Digital cognitive technologies : epistemology and the knowledge economy / edited by Bernard Reber, Claire Brossaud.

p. cm.

Translated from French.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-84821-073-8

1. Social sciences--Information services. 2. Social sciences--Data processing. 3. Communication in the social sciences. I. Reber, Bernard. II. Brossaud, Claire. III. Title.

H61.3.H8613 2009

303.48'33--dc22

2009020231

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-84821-073-8

Foreword

The New Manufacture of HSS

The picture that is presented in this book is welcome because it deliberately mixes the “social” issues of ICT, and “scientific” issues of humanities and social sciences (HSS). This is indeed a very tangled situation where a “society” radically changes its device reflexivity and where researchers who make it their profession to ensure this reflexivity need to follow all ongoing innovations, with the fear of become disqualified. If some can say that the Internet and digitization are equivalent to what happened in the Renaissance with printing, then we can hardly doubt that it is another scientific era that is opening up, especially for HSS.

If Elisabeth Eisenstein [EIS 91] refuted any technological determinism, she was showing that current changes had gained strength through printing, by its power of spreading information to the masses, by its consultation of works authorizing the confrontation of knowledge, and by the durability of printed text not subject to being rewritten. The Internet and digital publishing have changed the scale of available information for the first two criteria, while in contrast, they introduce permanent instability, unlike printing. Surely this possibility of revision [LIV 94] noticed worldwide, allows us to confront heterogenous knowledge and constitutes a profound destabilization of organization of this knowledge itself. Let us specify in what fields:

– Digitization allows and forces explicitation. Working with a computer scientist is a radical test for any HSS researcher as it forces him to use very well defined categories, if they are to be manipulated by an algorithm. But all social participants are in the same situation: they need to explain, declare and document what they do, what they say, the people, objects and process, as demanded by quality management. This redocumentarization of the world, which we analyzed in the collective context of Pédauque [PED 06], is still at its beginning. It can certainly usefully help to formalize what was left implicit so that the participants can better coordinate or discuss issues. It can also turn into madness in its generalized form and is a powerful indicator, like some managerial tendencies, including research professionals, of what they want through omniscient ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). For the HSS, the same risk exists, that of only adopting the paradigms incorporated in their digital tools, in their indicators, at all levels of the production chain of scientific statements: gathering/production, processing, analysis and restitution. The “increased reflexivity” that could be expected through ICT would only lead to a new positivism, calculated certainly, but equally unproductive.

– ICT produce intangibles, we are told, yet the ordinary experience of the computer user makes him feel the very materiality of the machine and of the networks, especially when they break down or do not act as required through the interface commands. Therefore, it becomes possible to say that we “manufacture” HSS, only in the sense that, previously, their equipment seemed weak compared to other sciences. The indirect effect of HSS is to rediscover the work, production, and division of labor that constitute every scientific activity. Objects, terminals, sensors, “monstrators” and software can be thought of and adapted to researchers’ objectives. HSS can now claim to “use a laboratory” [LIC 96], in the same way as other sciences have done through their equipment. It is also for this reason that we have encouraged all observation platforms to be equipped and shared among disciplines [BOU 04]. It would be unfortunate if HSS copied the separation movement with respect to “society” that constituted the scientific model of contemporaries [LAT 92], having always buried laboratories far from public view. For it is the whole “society” that is coupled to its objects, its ever-more sophisticated devices, such that it no longer knows how to drive them. It is probably not a coincidence that some HSS approaches have rediscovered that the supposed society would not survive long without material objects that compose it in an inextricable lattice.

– If there is a reason to avoid carrying out laboratory experiments as in the good old days of natural science, it is that all the tools used by HSS are in everyone’s hands and they gain, through the network, an uncontrollable distribution power. The Internet destabilizes all authorities precisely because the notion of copyright is being relativized at high speed. All cultural activities based on copyright are suffering, but neither “hard” sciences nor HSS will be able to avoid it. The asymmetries of knowledge and power can potentially all be destabilized. It is no longer the undisputed laboratory facts that constitute the contemporary truth regime, but rather the proliferation, debate and a certain disorientation created by the “opinion economy” [ORL 99] that governs the Internet.

– Knowledge produced by the new observation tools and computing centers thus made available can hardly stand in disciplinary boundaries. Paradigm circulation is facilitated by means of indexing, emerging from supposedly shared references and we know that creativity is often born of these heterodox circumstances. But we could also believe that here again it is the tools that would give birth to new paradigms, to such an extent that some disciplines might feel endangered by some of their specialties: linguistics with NLP (natural language processing), geography with geomatics and cognitive sciences by cognitics, for example.

The paradox is nevertheless that digital networking enables authors to revisit their ideas of other types of “social” model. Let us make this hypothesis: if Durkheim was the statistical state child and produced a theory on the social structure in line with its history and the thinking tools of that time, then Tarde should have been considered as the father (or ancestor) of networks and digital since he set up all conceptual tools of contagion, imitation and propagation in late 19th Century before these techniques became so visible and handleable today. The question is whether the HSS will only change the data processing software or whether they will take advantage of it to change the “conceptual software” that govern them, in France at least.

– In all cases, socio-technical realities that the Internet and digital have built constitute land-continents to explore, requiring specific tools and methods due to their instability. The idea that on the Web, for example, a new library would be created is a typical way of reproducing old frameworks to grasp new phenomena, and reflects this difficult sidestep in the face of what is emerging. It is not in any way a matter of duplication of a “real world”, but indeed that of another world – an ultra-world that requires an ultra-reading, as proposed in [GHI 03], just as real as the other. HSS will be the essential surveyors of this new universe.

– One of the advantages of the emerging technical worlds’ instability, at their birth, is indeed to give rise to controversies, with exploration possibilities. HSS, when equipped, often depend nevertheless on what is on offer from computer scientists in laboratories or on the market. They are therefore led to make choices that would later appear erroneous or would force them to make unnecessary efforts to adapt. It is the duty of HSS, because of the knowledge of this constant tension between divergence and convergence that animates every social life, to claim a pluralism of architectures [LES 99]. Technical fatalities do not exist, any more than a guarantee of winning standards. It is therefore important that the debate – that digitization strengthens – also involves these technical architecture policies, both for researchers and for all collective activities beyond research. There is no constant winning policy for archiving architectures or for those of the publication, to take but two examples.

It is convenient to make choices, but under the condition of organizing debates and preserving pluralism of choice. We have noticed to what extent, over 10 years, the semantic Web model has come to dominate debates by monopolizing all efforts in the field of knowledge engineering, for example. However, its limits, that could be determined from its own theoretical assumptions (the language designed as a label, for simplification) have only recently been allowed, and upset, not so much by researchers as developers who launch applications under Web2.0 everywhere, from the so-called “social” Web. Research then registers this by moving towards a socio-semantic Web and risks preventing the debate. Client-server architectures have been outrageously maintained as unique references in computer laboratories in the same way despite mass spreading of peer-to-peer architectures in general public use.

HSS could at least have the advantage of not suffering from the influence of the social world of computer science: they are then able to ask and require, at least for themselves, tools adapted to emerging phenomena. More generally, they could be those defending the social dynamism of these techniques and therefore their pluralism and controversies. This is not to recite a new version of critical sociology praising the marvels of popular autoproduction and resistance to domination, but to reopen debates that we would want to conclude too quickly, under the cover of supposed technical certainty. When HSS become equipped, they certainly suffer the tensions and uncertainties of the digital universe that are emerging, but they should also be able to assert their experience of these tensions and controversies as an advantage to show their diversity. If this temporarily slows their effectiveness, it is probably positive in the long term because very few can say exactly how effective HSS is.

These debates go on through the very diverse chapters of this work, and allow us to measure the considerable internal conversion work that is being carried out throughout HSS upon the emergence of ICTs – the new knowledge support.

Dominique BOULLIER

Professor of sociology at the University of Rennes 2

Director of UMS CNRS Lutin 2809, Director of LAS, EA 22411

Bibliography

[BOU 04] BOULLIER D., “The platform effect in social sciences”, 1st European User Lab Conference, Lutin, City of Sciences, Paris, 24 November 2004.

[EIS 91] EISENSTEIN E.-L., La Révolution de l’Imprimé dans l’Europe des Premiers Temps Modernes, La Découverte, Paris, 1991.

[GHI 03] GHITALLA F., BOULLIER D., GKOUSKOU P., LE DOUARIN L., NEAU A., L’Outre-lecture. Manipuler, (s’) Approprier, Interpréter le Web, Public Information Library, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2003.

[LAT 92] LATOUR B., Nous n’avons Jamais été Modernes. Symmetrical Anthropology Test, La Découverte, Paris, 1992.

[LES 99] LESSIG L., Code and Other Laws in Cyberspace, Basic Books, New York, 1999.

[LIC 96] LICOPPE C., La Formation de la Pratique Scientifique, La Découverte, Paris, 1996.

[LIV 94] LIVET P., La communauté virtuelle, Editions de l’Éclat, Combas, 1994.

[ORL 99] ORLEAN A., Le Pouvoir de la Finance, Odile Jacob, Paris, 1999.

[PED 06] PÉDAUQUE R.T., Le Document à la Lumière du Numérique, C&F editions, Caen, 2006.

1 http://www.uhb.fr/sc_humaines/las/.

Introduction1

“The tool certainly does not make science, but a society that claims to respect sciences should not ignore their tools.”

Marc BLOCH, “Preface” in DUBY G., Apologie pour l’histoire ou Métier d’historien, Armand Colin, Paris, p. 67, 7th edition, 1974.

It was a long time ago when, in 1949, philosopher Roberto Busa tried with great difficulty to convince the founder of IBM, T.J. Watson (Jr), to develop a piece of software enabling the analysis of a lexicon and navigation through the works of medieval philosophers. The person who agreed to write the Postscript of this book is now recognized as one of the pioneers of computer linguistics and an authority in the field of computers for humanities, with his famous Index Thomisticus, linking information and communication sciences (ICTS) and humanities in an original way. Similarly, an expression such as “knowledge society”, frequently associated with the emergence of information and communication technologies (ICT), seems to characterize this association today. However, their ability to inform and support communication soon becomes problematic if they are understood in an interdisciplinary way, among researchers from ICTS and researchers in human and social sciences (HSS), as is the case here with the authors convened. Evaluation of technological innovation depends on these technologies, sometimes combined in the same way as the layers of a millefeuille, but also widely in the way HSS captures them. Indeed, many reports1 are actually careful about the relationships between “ICT and society” and call for a profound consideration. On the one hand, ICT are complex and, on the other hand, how HSS approach them deserves an explanation articulating methodological, theoretical and epistemological considerations, far from the two pitfalls of technical and social determinism. The construction of sophisticated tools, both physical and informatics, are concurrent to the construction of variable research objects and often competing in HSS disciplines.

The reader will find in this book analyses polarized on uses and the impact of technologies on society. However, the ambition here is more radical: it tries to examine, both from a theoretical and practical point of view, how HSS concepts or notions important today are processed by the possibilities of these cognitive2 technologies. We have used eight thematic parts that involve all concepts currently being widely discussed by researchers and through this we open an updated dialog on the role of science and technologies in our societies. The fact of questioning these themes reflects a willingness for formal debate, supported by some conception of philosophy and sociology, to bring together very diverse knowledge and to favor reflexivity. Throughout the chapters, we quickly understand in fact that we are not simply faced with a new type of data, overwhelmed by access to a huge number of documentary resources, or faced with new collaboration possibilities among scientists, but that beyond opportunities, ICT affect the theoretical cores of certain disciplines, their organizations and social and political implications.

Certainly, the authors of these chapters are all strongly rooted and recognized in a discipline, but they are aware of the design, practice and understanding of ICT, and are engaged in this perilous crossing among a priori remote sciences. This is the case for those from ICTS, who are subscribed in computer science (with various specializations) and in mathematics, but equally for HSS researchers and teachers, including here sociology, philosophy, cognitive sciences, sociolinguistics, geography, anthropology, management, history, as well as information and communication sciences. Despite inherent risks of dispersion in this type of exercise, exacerbated by the fact that we have voluntarily appealed to researchers often recognized on a broad geographic scale, that of the Francophonie3, this collaboration constitutes a real scientific added value that would not have been achieved without this diversified expertise, avoiding early or outrageously simplistic results. This book aims to make as seamless as possible articles of cultures and scientific languages from disciplines that rarely encounter one another. It therefore concerns neither a classic collective4 book mainly organized around the same discipline, nor an eclectic collaboration. A long and rigorous editorial framework has thus been approved by the authors who carried out this work, supported by an equally great effort by its 40 contributors5. The “conversation” among such varied disciplines constitutes a multi- and interdisciplinary challenge, sometimes even transdisciplinary, because certain authors have introduced knowledge of disciplines other than their own. This rare opportunity to get so many disciplines to work with one another is already an achievement in itself, without even mentioning the ICT object, although it does seem to impose itself, as D. Boullier recalls in his preface.

This treatise is in eight parts that involve in a reflective way all the major questions asked by the joint fields of HSS and ICTS around ICT: time, space, networks, text and hypertext, interpretation, cooperation, politics and socio-informatics. The chapters of which the parts are made up have been designed according to an identical coherence: they are marked by the same concern for factual and conceptual exactness, and by a spirit of balance between information and communication technologies sciences (ICTS) and human and social sciences (HSS). From Part 1 to Part 5, Digital Cognitive Technologies involves the epistemological evolution of HSS disciplines in terms of cognitive technologies. We can find their impact on methods and theories. Parts 6 to 8 put this evolution more clearly in a social and political perspective. They further study relationships of technologies between various spheres of society: deliberation and design of scientific documents, new transactional traffic flow coordination arrangements or even collective expertise systems. For concepts and ideas used in every part, the analysis combines three types of input:

– the first type, provided by a researcher generally from ICTS, indicates in what way each idea or concept used is concerned with ICT;

– the second studies how the chosen idea or concept, important for the HSS, is reworked by ICT and their existence in society;

– the third presents experiments showing how ICT can concretely support research in HSS in processing the idea or concept.

Bibliography

[BRO 05] BROSSAUD C., TIC, Sociétés et espaces urbains : bilan et perspectives de la recherche francophone en sciences sociales (1996–2004), Action Concertée Incitative Ville, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme “ Villes et territoires ”, Tours University, 2005.

[REB 03] REBER B., Les TIC dans les processus politiques de concertation et de décision. Multiples perspectives ouvertes par les recherches en sciences humaines et sociales, Ministry of ecology and sustainable development, 2003.

Presentation of authors

Editors

Claire Brossaud ([email protected]) is a sociologist at the University of Lyon. Her interest is in how sciences and technologies question public spaces in their territorial and deliberative dimensions. After completing a thesis on the “imaginary builder” of a new town, she conducted several research works, in particular for House of Human Sciences “Cities and territories” of the University of Tours and the GRASS-CNRS Paris. She has coordinated workshops and brainstorming sessions on these themes for the last five years within different organizations (French Association of Sociology, VECAM-European and citizen watch on information and multimedia motorways, etc.).

Bernard Reber ([email protected]) is a philosopher and researcher at the Research Centre “Meaning, ethics and society” (CERSES-CNRS/University of Paris Descartes). He studies ethics in the context of participatory technological assessment. He is the author of Les TIC dans les processus politiques de concertation et de decision. Multiples perspective ouvertes par les recherches en sciences humaines et sociales (“ICT in consultation and decision political processes. Multiple prospects opened by researchers in human and social sciences”) for the Ministry of ecology and sustainable development (2003). He co-edited Le pluralisme (“Pluralism”), Archives de philosophie du droit, vol. 45 (2005) and is the author of La démocratie génétiquement modifiée. Sociologies éthiques de l’évaluation des technologies controversées (“Genetically Modified Democracy. Ethical Sociologies of Evaluation of Controversial Technologies”) (2010). He is a member of the international group “Eco-ethica” and on the editorial board of Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (see: http://cerses.shs.univ-paris5.fr/spip.php?article113)

Both editors have contributed to different research groups on the relationships between ICTS and HSS, including:

– a research group for computerized textual analysis (ARCATI-IRESCO-CNRS) aiming to compare computerized textual analysis software in HSS research;

– a specific multidisciplinary action of the CNRS “Distributed collective practices and cooperation technologies” (AS PCD/TC).

Co-authors

Henry Bakis is Professor of geography at the University of Montpellier III. He runs (and founded in 1987) the Netcom (Networks and Communication Studies: http://recherche.univ-montp3.fr/mambo/netcom_labs/) journal, published under the auspices of CNFG and International Geographical Union (IGU) of which he chaired the ICT commission (1992–2000). He is a member of the UMR “Mutations of Territories in Europe” (since January 2007) and the author of numerous works, including Enterprise, Space and Telecommunications (1987), Geopolitics of Information (1988), Networks and their Social Issues (1993).

Luc Bonneville ([email protected]), after completing a doctorate in sociology (PhD) at the University of Quebec at Montreal and carrying out research as a postdoctoral researcher within the Health Administration Department of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal, has been a Professor, since 2004 in the Communication Department at the University of Ottawa. In 2004, he was awarded the best doctorate thesis on the issue of “Computer Science and Society” at the annual competition of the Coordination Centre for Research and Education in Information Science and Society (CREIS) in France. In 2005, it was the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics (IREC) that rewarded him at its annual prize giving ceremony for the best doctorate thesis. His research focuses on the computerization of healthcare organizations, especially in terms of organizational communication. Author of several scientific articles in diverse journals, he is also a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Organizational Communication (GRICO) at the University of Ottawa.

Dominique Boullier is Professor of sociology at the University of Rennes 2, Director of the UMS CNRS Lutin 2809, and Director of LAS, EA 2241 (http://www.uhb.fr/sc_humaines/las/).

Grégory Bourguin (http://lil.univ-littoral.fr/~bourguin) is a lecturer in computer science and a member of the ModEL team as well as the Coastal Information Science Laboratory (LIL) at the University of Opale Coast (ULCO).

Stéphan Brunessaux ([email protected]) joined Matra in 1990 as Head of the Research Centre for Information Processing of the EADS Defense and Security located in Val-de-Reuil (27). This is the source of the European research project for Internet voting CyberVote, which he ran from 2000 to 2003. He has received the European prize for Information Society Technologies.

Roberto Busa is Professor of philosophy (ontology and epistemology). We owe to him the Thomisticus Index, which exists in 56 volumes, available in CD or software (http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/it/index.age). He is one of the founders of the Association for Computers and Humanities (http://www.ach.org/), and of the Alliance of Digital Humanities (http://www.digitalhumanities.org/).

Alberto Cambrosio is Professor in the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University (Montreal). His work focuses on biomedical innovation, in particular at the clinical-laboratory interface in the field of cancer genomics.

Dominique Cardon ([email protected]) is a sociologist at the Usage Sociology Laboratory of France Telecom R&D.

Jean Clément is a lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences in the “Hypermedias” Department of the University of Paris 8 and head of “Hypertext Writings” team of Paragraphe Laboratory. He has written “Cyberliterature between literary game and video game” in N. Szilas and J.H. Rety (ed.), Création de récits pour les fictions interactives: simulation et réalisation, Hermès, Paris, 2006.

Bernard Conein ([email protected]) is Professor of sociology at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis and Director of ICT Uses Laboratory in Sophia Antipolos, specializing in cognitive and innovation sociology.

Pascal Cottereau ([email protected]), a graduate of ESSEC Management, specializes in marketing and ESIEE MS Technological innovation and project management. After 12 years in SSII and consulting firms, he joined the AGUIDEL Company in 2005 and is pursuing in parallel a doctorate in Information Sciences.

François Daoust ([email protected]) is a computer scientist attached to ATO, and developer of the SATO software.

Jules Duchastel ([email protected]) is Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Quebec (Montreal) (UQAM) and holder of the Canada Research Chair in globalization, citizenship and democracy (http://www.chaire-mcd.ca). He works mainly on the analysis of new forms of political regulation in the context of international organizations and development of a deliberative transnational space. He is the author of an abundant methodological production in the analysis of computer-aided speech that he developed at the Centre for Text Analysis by Computer (ATO), which he founded in 1983 http://www.ling.uqam.ca/ato).

Thierry Foucart ([email protected]) is Associate Professor in Mathematics and a lecturer at the University of Poitiers, authorized to conduct research (http://foucart.thierry.free.fr/). He is interested in epistemological relations between statistics and social sciences.

Anne Goldenberg ([email protected]) is a doctorate student in sociology at the University Sofia Antipolis in Nice and in communication at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). Her thesis focuses on cognitive and political schemes of public wikis.

Sylvie Grosjean ([email protected]) is Professor in the Communication Department of the University of Ottawa. She is particularly interested in communicative interactions during distance collaborative work situations (http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/communication/fra/grosjean.html).

Gaël Gueguen ([email protected]) is Professor of strategic management at Toulouse Business School – University of Toulouse. A researcher within the Management Research Centre, he develops works on the strategic management of SME and firms of Information Technology sector.

Andrea Iacovella is a Deputy Director at ENSIIE and research engineer in the languages and civilizations of ancient worlds, and in computer science. He runs an interdisciplinary research network on the construction of meaning in historical disciplines and is interested in the consequences of digital on their methods and epistemology (http://www.porphyry.org/Members/aiacovella).

Nicolas Larrieu ([email protected]) is Professor and researcher at the National School of Civil Aviation in Toulouse. He works in the “Electronics and Networks” Department, where he addresses the problems of metrology of Internet traffic and its applications in network security. He is a member of the LAAS-CNRS, 7 Avenue du Colonel Roche, 31077 Toulouse cedex 4, France.

Philippe Laublet ([email protected]) is a lecturer in computer science at Sorbonne (University of Paris 4), a former senior scientist at the National Office of Aerospatial Studies and Researches (ONERA) and co-head of the specific action Web Semantic of the CNRS (ITCS Department).

After a PhD in Sociology, Christophe Lejeune now teaches information and communication at the University of Brussels Interested in mediated interactions, he is the author of a qualitative analysis free software (Cassandre) part of the Hypertopic collaborative platform (http://cassandre-qda.sourceforge.net/).

Arnaud Lewandowski ([email protected]) is a lecturer in computer science, member of the ModEL team, of the Coastal Information Science Laboratory (LIL), University of Opale Coast (ULCO).

Pierre Maranda ([email protected]), Professor Emeritus, is research director in the Anthropology Department of Laval University, Quebec. He is the designer of the site http://www.oceanie.org/.

Alain Milon ([email protected]) is Professor of philosophy at the University of Paris Ouest. He is the author of the following works: Bacon, l’effroyable viande (Bacon, the Horrifying Meat), Encre Marine, Paris, 2009, Maurice Blanchot, lecteur de René Char? (Maurice Blanchot, Rene Chart reader?), Complicites, Paris, 2009; Levinas, Blanchot: penser la différence (Levinas, Blanchot: Think the Difference), University Press of Paris Ouest, Paris 2008, The Book and its Spaces, University of Paris Ouest, Paris 2007; La fabrication de l’écriture à l’épreuve du temps (Writing manufacture facing the test of time), Complicités, Paris, 2006; L’écriture de soi: ce lointain intérieur — moments d'hospitalité autour d'Antonin Artaud (Writing for Granted that Distant Inner-Moments Hospitality around Antonin Artaud, literary hospitality moments around d’A. Artaud), Encre marine, La Versanne, 2005; La réalité virtuelle, Avec ou sans le corps (Virtual Reality, With or without the body), Autrement, Paris, 2005.

Maxime Morge ([email protected]) is a doctor in computer science. He works in the artificial intelligence field, particularly on multi-agent systems. He obtained his doctorate in 2005 at the National Superior School of Mines in Saint-Etienne. After having worked in the fundamental computing laboratory in Lille, followed by a brief postdoctoral stint at the University of Ottawa in Canada, he is currently a member of the Computer Science Department at the University of Pisa.

Andrei Mogoutov is designer and co-founder of the AGUIDEL Company. He is specialized in designing solutions for heterogenous data analysis applied in particular to scientific, technological and economic surveillance, as well as to the strategic management of innovation.

Philippe Owezarski ([email protected]) is a member of LAAS-CNRS, 7 Avenue du Colonel Roche, 31077 Toulouse cedex 4, France.

Stefan Popowycz, after completing studies in sociology of medicine at McGill University, now works as an analyst with the Reports Department on hospitals of the Canadian Institute of Health Information.

Christophe Prieur ([email protected]) is a lecturer in computer science at University Paris Diderot and researcher at LIAFA, posted in Usage Sociology Laboratory of France Telecom R&D.

Serge Proulx ([email protected]) is a sociologist, professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), director of the research group on media uses and cultures (GRM) (http://grm.uqam.ca/) and the laboratory of computer-mediated communication (LabCMO) (http://cmo.uqam.ca).

Richard Rogers ([email protected]) is director of “new media” at the University of Amsterdam, visiting Professor in the Department of Scientific Studies at the University of Vienna and director of Govcom.org (Amsterdam) Foundation. He is the author of Technological Landscapes, Royal College of Art, London, 1999, editor of Preferred Placement: Knowledge Politics on the Web, Jan Van Eyck, Maastricht, 2000 and author of Information Politics on the Web, MIT Press, Cambridge, USA, 2004 (first prize in ASSIST (American Society for Information Science and Technology)).

Eddie Soulier is a research professor in computer science at Charles Delaunay Institute in the University of Technology in Troyes, FRE CNRS 2848, “Cooperation technologies for innovation and organizational change”.

William Turner ([email protected]) heads social informatics research in a group working on architectures and models for interaction at the Computer Science Laboratory for Mechanics and Engineering Science (LIMSI) of the French National Research Council (CNRS). He has edited with Geof Bowker, Les Gasser and Manuel Zacklad a special issue for the Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work entitled “Information Infrastructures for Distributed Collective Practices” (June 2006) and has started to publish extensively on work he coordinated for UNESCO aimed at computers supporting the formation and consolidation of Diaspora Knowledge Networks.

Karl M. Van Meter, doctor in mathematics (ordered algebraic structures), is a sociologist and has directed in particular: Sociologie, Larousse, Paris, 1992; Interrelation between Type of Analysis and Type of Interpretation, Peter Lang Verlag, Bern, 2003. He has directed the Bulletin de méthodologie sociologique (BMS) since its creation in 1983.

Tania Vichnevskaia, cofounder of the AGUIDEL Company, is a consultant in the field of heterogenous data analysis.

Philippe Vidal ([email protected]) is a lecturer at the University of Havre, and member of the UMR CNRS 6228 IDEES/CIRTAI. He has been, since 1st January 2007, President of the “Information Society” commission of the French National Committee of Geography (CNFG). He is also associate director of Netcom journal. Author in 2002 of a thesis entitled “The region facing the information society”, his main entrance key focuses on the capacity of local executives to integrate the ICT issue in their economic and social development strategies.

Saïd Yami is Associate Professor in Strategic Management at the University of Montpellier I (ISEM), and Professor at EUROMED Management – Marseille, France. A member of the ERFI, he has published many research articles and several books related to competitive relationships through the topics of rivalry and disruptive strategies, collective strategies and “coopetition”. In addition he develops research on entrepreneurship and strategy in high-tech industries.

Manuel Zacklad ([email protected]) runs the multidisciplinary laboratory Tech-CICO (http://tech-cico.utt.fr/) at the University of Technology in Troyes (UTT/ICDFRE CNRS 2848).

1 Introduction written by Claire BROSSAUD and Bernard REBER.

1 See the two recent contributions in particular from the authors [BRO 05, REB 03].

2 We have qualified these technologies as such to better reflect various activities that they support and that concern knowledge.

3 All French-speaking countries.

4 This treatise could furthermore be considered as a way of viewing HSS dictionaries, which rarely try to prove the diversity of their theoretical and methodological resources to answer a question, such as socio-technical interactions, but which often prefer to present great authors, trends or even themes.

5 We would like to thank them for their enthusiasm, their patience and their efforts in the “translation” between disciplines. We are also grateful to Claude Henry and Michel Cardon for their help, which was more than just a re-reading, but rather an informed and knowing look over the whole project.

PART I

Can ICT Tell History?

Chapter 1

Elements for a Digital Historiography1

1.1. Introduction

History starts with a document, which is essential evidence from the time it was produced. The traditional document, defined by the inseparable relationship between writing and printing has been succeeded by the digital document, characterized by the introduction of stand-alone writing. This separation alters the operating conditions of most historiography methods when using documents.

Digital technology brings characteristics of a major epistemological break, which is able to affect the continuity and autonomy of changes that mark historiographical evolution.

The mobility and flexibility of digital documents means they can be exploited beyond that of traditional documents, ensuring a link with previous changes. The digital document, in its current rough or future sophisticated version, is a new historical material which requires a new generation of methods for historical analysis and a big change in discipline structures1.

1.1.1. Epistemological mutations of historiography

Historiography results from a set of epistemological mutations that are the root of its methodological renewals2: critical analysis of the document, use of the hypothesis, conjuncture/structure relationship, sampling and quantitative methods. Problems from history have been enriched by contributions from other sciences, providing an interdisciplinary exchange which has deeply marked historiography, both in its objectives and methods [BLO 74]3. The actual construction is characterized by the coexistence of various conceptions of history, sometimes radically opposed, creating complex and reactionary debates. This coexistence depends on an activity that is autonomous and separate from methods of analysis, whose use does not alter the processed material. If methodological contributions have had an impact on already existing methods, the changes have remained limited and have not resulted in transformations affecting the operating conditions of each of these methods. Although historical material ensures stability of its objects and methods, at the same time it constitutes a lever for historiography development and its epistemological mutations.

1.1.2. History and documentation

Documents have been used throughout history. From the start of history, the document appears as a privileged material with dual status: witness in the information sense and proof in the juridical meaning of evidence [PIC 73]4. It is in the mid-19th Century that the discipline started to develop a set of rules that controls document analysis, named critical method5. Twenty years later, according to Croce the document is the essential condition to existence of history [CRO 89]6. The fragment and indirect statement7 has imposed itself as a tool for which society guarantees throughout archives, libraries and museums [BLO 74]8.

1.2. Historiography facing digital document

1.2.1. The digital document

The development of information and communication technology sciences (ICTS) in recent years is explained by the upsurge in human and social uses of the digital document, most of whose characteristics are partly found in the continuity of the traditional document, while others represent a change. The digital document, whose use is inseparable from technologies that produced it, offers two sides – the object itself and methods by which it was created – by which it is convenient to examine the impact on historiography. By its object nature and wide adoption in everyday life, it constitutes a new material for historical studies9. By its dependence on scientific methods inherited from ICTS, digital documentation constitutes a supplementary mutation for historiography.

1.2.1.1. Interdisciplinary research on digital documentation

A group of researchers gathered in a multi-disciplinary network dedicated to digital documentation10 has conducted a collective reflection on ongoing mutations. By combining the expertise of various disciplines and by making the document a research object, these works promote a renewed understanding of human and social activities. The network has published three texts that put together the three analysis levels to which the document was subjected: the document as form, sign and medium. The document as a form [PED 03] with its physical and material nature acts as a technical instrument. The document as a sign [PED 05] is analyzed in its dual material and intelligible nature for its interpretation through reading and writing methods. The document as a medium [PED 06], studied as a social object and place of information exchange, comes into the configuration of new forms of human and social transactions [ZAC 05]. It concerns historiography as new participant object of human activities and for whose study methods remain to be explored11.

1.2.1.2. Instrumentation of a digital document

The traditional document, which is defined by the inseparable relationship between writing support and display support, succeeds the digital document, where the concept of support loses its position as a stable component, due to the proliferation of devices that combine support, access and information coding in complex ways: disks, memories, caches, servers increase, monitors, printers and others. This transformation has the effect of deconstructing the document in a registered resource on one hand, and dynamically calculated views on the other hand [BAC 04c]. The resource is not accessible as it is. The user of a digital document is only confronted with processed documents. As a consequence, the digital document represents the new document, which is accompanied by complex and growing technological interdependence at the same time it is assigned a representation property based on an increase in non-hierarchical views.

1.2.2. Consequences related to a traditional document

The dissociation caused by a digital document ruins the conditions belonging to a traditional document:

– authenticity: the objectivity enabled by a traditional document is difficult due to the dynamic reconstruction of the new document. The “reader” does not compare the representation that he has in front of his eyes with the reality of the resource. Where the traditional document relays the set of representations, the digital document reader is deprived of this objectivity which is reduced to a hybrid condition that destroys “the authenticity” of traditional document;

– integrity: readers are confronted with multiple representations of a document without being able to evaluate them for adherence to the original document. The qualities of adaptation to different contexts ruin “the integrity” of the traditional document which has the effect of disorienting the reader. Without any stable space, the reading of the digital document requires a constant reconstruction of the document which is akin to a new form of a new appropriation;

– identity: the growing number of interventions and visualizations, the uninsured character of the precision of the content represented, opacity of supports and potential fragmentation of resources ruin conditions of “identity” of traditional document12;

– sustainability: technologies interdependence, the use of distributed resources coupled with technological evolutions as both fast and disconcerting, contribute to ruin “sustainability” conditions of traditional document. The sustainability of digital document [CHAB 04] requires a strong instrumentation13 that results in concentrating the weakness of the device on some points by rendering it vulnerable to a massive and profound alteration of contents.

1.2.3. Consequences on historiography

The loss of authenticity, integrity, identity and sustainability with digital documentation ruins the conditions of critical analysis of the document, summarized as: Who produced it? How? When? and Where? It is the unprecedented upheaval in operating conditions when the document is used that results in changes in the historiographic structure’s its methods, principles and results. This is why the digital document configures a major epistemological renewal in favor of a digital historiography. We must insist on the scale and complexity of a hypothetical instrumentation of the new document, able to durably restore conditions of traditional historiography to which the discipline appears to be acquired. This instrumentation, which does not allow itself to be reduced to a single technological project, but to a set of mutations often dictated by urgency, does not take into account the historiographic objective: a document is the essential condition for the existence of history. It is mobilized by norms and standards research aimed at a tight mesh of the international community, for strict communication functions.

The second part of the study describes the contribution of ICTS to methods of historiography that fall into two major orientations: the use of computer formalisms to ensure formal control of scientific constructions and semiotization of documentary sources, understood as a modeling and semantic units traceability process. Through its close relationship with the interpretation of sources and historical construction, the nomenclature constitutes the entry point of a comparative study of both technological trends.

1.3. ICTS contributions to historiography methods

1.3.1. Nomenclature and historical semantics

Nomenclature14 is a tool for ensuring the link between documentary material and scientific construction, whose consistency it guarantees. It is an interpretation tool that gives a meaning15 to each term. There is no nomenclature without a document and no history without nomenclature. History is the tool by which the outline is clarified and vocabulary develops from its material. The historian “is forced to substitute a nomenclature to the language of sources, because it restricts the use, distorts the meanings without warning the reader, without ever realizing itself” [BLO 74]16. The nomenclature aims to overcome the imperfection of documentary evidence and return the deep bonds of facts. Once this has been taken into consideration, each important term becomes a real element of knowledge: it is the method of historical semantic [FUS 82]17.

1.3.1.1. ICTS models

Models that have been developed by the ICTS follow the two guidelines introduced by Boch: whether they prefer the stability of contents handled by the categories of the historian or the semantic shift when they are updated, depending on the context of the study. Research covers two fields that are subject to distinct changes in historiography that will be exposed in the study: the use of formalisms and ontological engineering for the formal control of scientific content, the use of documentary engineering for enriching sources and observation of signification modes. The study shows that, far from being mutually exclusive, the two trajectories tend to converge with each other.

1.3.2. The initiatives of formalisms

The criticism of formalism redefines artificial intelligence (AI) as “artefacture”, in the form of engineering using knowledge emerging from hermeneutic and intersubjectivity [BAC 97]. Knowledge engineering (KE) results from logicism formalism of the nature of the knowledge (Vienna Circle) and a calculative design of logic following computational formalism (Hilbert and Turing). KE adopts an approach based on a modeling principle that refers to the domain knowledge of the problem and a principle of effectiveness that ensures their operating character18. For formalism, knowledge is only knowledge when it is formal and when formal it is operational.

The effective model should reflect reality in its structure and demonstrate a descriptive compliance but in practice there is difference between the modeling principle claimed by formalism and interpretative deadlock of objects coming from it. The difficulty is in defining basic concepts in “primitive”19 areas. These result from construction based on a particular point of view, but do not define all possible points of view in the field. The consequence is that the predicates of formalism are manipulated as primitives, although in practice their interpretation depends on the context in which they are used. In other words, formalized “primitives” cannot be interpreted as “primitives” in this field [BAC 00].

1.3.2.1. From nomenclature to instrumentation of interpretation

Formalization is not a proper modeling approach because it is based on a preliminary modeling. Without a modeling function, computer formalisms become a knowledge support, redefined as intellectual writings and tools [BAC 04a]. They lead to a new instrument of formal control of scientific constructions: ontology is a linguistic and formal representation of the concepts of a domain in an applicative context, which, in the case of history, formalizes the significance of nomenclature. Although the ambitions and hopes raised by formalism are strongly reconsidered, KE has the effect of reviving the instrumentation of semantic models on human sciences.

1.3.2.2. Works and experiments in historiography

Archaeology is a fertile disciplinary field in terms of methodology where natural, mathematical and human sciences come together. The indifference of historians towards archaeology is no longer relevant [BLO 74]20. The development of the stratigraphical method ensures the study of relationships among objects, the observation of a divided space and a historical reading of facts [SCH 74].

1.3.2.2.1. Formalization and publication of erudite speech

Starting from 1974, Gardin presented an analysis of erudite speech [GAR 74] and the project of reformulation of archaeological writing based on a formal approach to “get them out of a practical crisis, due to the proliferation of publications, their high costs and inadequacy of their form, as well as a theoretical crisis” [GAR 75]21. Gardin proposed to bring the architecture of all archaeological monographs back to a single diagram in order to present an interpretation where archaeological science is developed. The visionary relevance and timeliness of these works show that “[…] all the scientific disciplines face the exponential growth of documentation and development of analytical methods of processing militate in favour of other forms of storage and data broadcasting other than printed literature” [GAR 75]22. These researches resembled documentary techniques at first, then AI by using expert systems [GAR 87]. It is only recently that the connection with KE and hypertext has initiated a new type of instrumentation capable of meeting the theoretical challenge.

1.3.2.2.2. The Arkéotek project

The logicism project took a new turn with the use of CD-ROM publication of research into ethno archaeology [ROU 00]. This is extended in an online journal. Arkéotek, on the archaeology of techniques [ROU 04b], was presented as an alternative. “Faced with the scientific publications crisis, combine both electronic edition and new writing practices”23. The rewriting of texts, based on the logico-semantic model, uses a formal language – SCD (Scientific Construct and Data) [ROU 04a]. The project uses ontology to describe and structure knowledge gathering [AUS 06].

1.3.2.2.3. Other extensions: the Palamède project

Outside the strict publication framework developed by Arkéotek, logic formalism was tested as part of a historiography study on the emergence of the first economic and socio-political structures: the Palamède project [FRA 89]. This system submits the same archaeological facts to the different theories of emergence of protohistoric urban societies to observe how they differ. The system formalizes doxography24 in the form of interpretive reasoning of theories, and physiography, which gives a relevant interpretive value to archaeological facts. On a methodological level, the Palamède project represents the first contribution of the comparative method to historiography, which leads to the objectification of theories and to an epistemology of diversity [RAS 02].

1.3.3. A semiotics of the documentary object

After formal research on stabilization of content, the other experiment developed by the ICTS aimed to observe the semantic shift of categories at the time of their updating. By focusing on the observation of changes occurring during the study, it takes a close interest in the practices of the historian and aims to identify the modes of signification of the discipline; it is in this way that it relates to semiotics25. These works relate to the new modes of reading and ownership of digital documents where handling, owning and interpreting impact on activity: corpus, document and sign [BOU 03]. The autonomy of media, display and writing, introduces breaks in the conception and elaboration of contents [BAC 04b].

1.3.3.1. New reading methods of the digital document

On an experimental level, enrichment of sources by annotations is observed as a continuous and dynamic process [BEN 04b] of semiotization that turns them into documentary objects. Semiotization reinstates the knowledge modeling function which, as we have shown26, is outsidecomputer formalisms. The contextualization of annotations and their hypertextual solidarity with sources ensure the traceability of semantics units linked to the enrichment of the referenced document. It is expressed in formalism of networks of description by the use of directed acyclic graphs27. The resulting non-linear reading, between annotations and documents, avoids disorientation28 of hypertext reading [BAC 99], carried out from document to document, and represents an interpretative path [IAC 02] for expert and specialized use. The new methods involve the reader in an annotation-based ownership of the document, the resulting reformulation of which indicates the distance between content read and reading carried out. The new documentary objectivity [BAC 04c] has two sides: that of the author, who designs the canonical form of multi-support and multi-use presentations, opening up to the multi-structuralism of the document [CHAT 04] and that of the reader-author, who rebuilds a version he or she considers to be the proper reformulation.

1.3.3.2. The Porphyry project

Porphyry29 is a set of methods, based on the semiotization of sources, combined on a single computer platform [BEN 04a]. It is a digital workshop aimed at communities of experts looking to share digitalized documentary corpora: publications and archives (reports, photos, maps, plans, etc.). The system aims to store a hypermedia structure on digitalized documents. It provides tools to assist in the creation, organization, annotation and publication of an enriched document.

The starting point lies in a theoretical questioning of the construction of meaning in historical disciplines [BEN 02] and representation models of the semantics of documents [CAL 03]. In particular, it identifies as a methodological impasse in the use of the only normative30 definition of categories for historical observation and description of facts [BEN 01]. It delineates production of specialized knowledge and their circulation within a community, as a semantic field to combine needs of the situation expert, exposed to a knowledge update, and the know-how of a reference that characterizes the field [IAC 06].

The system is structured in three interdependent technological levels, experienced in the context of historical disciplines [IAC 05]:

– documentary objects shared by experts;

– common methods of sources enrichment;

– modeling assistants that apply specialized activities of expertise.

1.3.3.2.1. Generic methods31 of Porphyry

Expertise: the expert invests the space of documentary sources (source, source fragment, subset of sources and/or fragments designated by a file) that he or she enriches by using a system of contextualized annotations (collection). Methods available include naming, clustering, inclusion and the reading step, as well as historic situations that show properties of the enrichment (who did it? what? when?). The guided tour results from a set of annotations where we never pass by the same link twice.

Intersubjectivity: this is a collection of references linked to documentary objects by a user or a group of users. It represents the work of an expert. The system allows the production of several viewpoints from the same objects enabling intradisciplinary and multi-disciplinary32 comparison.

Diachrony: because each node of the Porphyry graph identifies all of the transactions carried out, their author and date, the system ensures traceability of semantic units representing variations that have affected the field of reference and that of its members, showing a set of varied temporalities [ROI 04] that historiography knows well [HAR 82]33.

1.3.3.2.2. Time modeling

Modeling wizards are tools that complete the generic relations of the Porphyry platform by using specialization relations, such as temporal relations. Uses of formalism and AI allow us to represent the knowledge of a field reference within the community. The researcher is involved in a dynamic model where he or she can interact with the community [ACC 05]. It concerns the time and rhythms of history on one hand and the conjuncture/structure relation on the other.

Manual temporalization of a corpus involves associating documentary object annotations with a temporal content, probably from knowledge organizations (thesaurus or ontologies34). The “temporal” structure derived allows temporalized exploitation of the corpus [ACC 04b]. Modeling times, whether they are multiple or thick, short or long, fast or slow, are presented as a result of a construction [BRA 89]35 and decryption “where phenomena are, as the place of their intelligibility” [BLO 74]36. Braudelien historical time is marked by the different rhythms deciphered. A chronology is never a datum but from the result of a combination of several indices. Its validation is continually challenged by the emergence of new data. Archaeology expresses its rhythms by relative dating where events are periods indicated by intervals.

In the Porphyry system temporal relations of Allen [ALL 91] that express dependence, inclusion and events simultaneity are explained in the formalism of description networks, where every time modeling done by the expert is represented by a Porphyry viewpoint. When the expert relies on the use of temporal relations in the annotation of a document, the system spreads the modeling done in the chronology of reference of the field and reports any inconsistencies, leaving the initiative to change such inconsistencies with the expert [ACC 04a].