DKR

The Dynamic Knowledge Repository (DKR) is Doug Engelbart's system for producing a coherent, edited, best-understood view of any given field by a group of people, fully integrating arguments and external information.

top level

If you are going to embark on any mission, it is useful to know what is going on - what the best understanding of a given field is. It is also useful to be able to track arguments. This is what the DKR environment aims to provide.

goal

The goal is to produce a knowledge product, giving you the best possible understanding of a complex situation. It will have both the knowledge/information as well as practically effective ways for the user/reader to access and understand it.

The DKR will also track and integrate the reasoning behind positions and the related arguments. External intelligence will also be integrated, as 'resources'. The goal of the DKR is as one component to support and enhance the solving of urgent, complex problems collectively.

dkr & hyperwords

In order to make the most of a dynamic knowledge repository, the user can benefit from the most efficient navigation system. This is what hyperwords is all about.

resources

These are the papers Doug Engelbart would like you to have read if you want to understand what the DKR is and how it's useful.:

Toward High-Performance Organizations: A Strategic Role for Groupware
Douglas C. Engelbart, Bootstrap Institute, June 1992
http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/augment-132811.htm
This paper puts forth some of Doug's ideas on computer-supported group work. From the abstract: Achieving tomorrows high-performance organizations will involve massive changes throughout their capability infrastructures. The complexity of implementing these changes will be daunting, and deserves a strategic approach. Groupware will support important, special new knowledge capabilities in these infrastructures, and also can play a key role in an evolutionary strategy.

Draft OHS-Project Plan
Doug Engelbart, Bootstrap Institute, October 2000
http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/bi-2120.html
Don't let the title fool you, this one is about the HyperScope as much as it is about OHS. Very relevant for DKRs. From the abstract: Large-scale challenges are best served if there are appropriately scaled strategic principles to guide their pursuit. And special value results if the launch plan of a long-term and large-scale strategy produces significant payoff accrual early in the pursuit. We are addressing the large-scale, pervasive challenge of improving the collective development and application of knowledge. Many years of focussed experience and conceptual development underlie the strategic framework guiding this proposal.

AUGMENTING HUMAN INTELLECT  :  A Conceptual Framework
Doug Engelbart, Bootstrap Institute, 1962
http://www.invisiblerevolution.net/engelbart/62_paper_top.html
The mother of all papers. If you haven't read it before, that's cool. Just look at some of the major sections. From the abstract: This is an initial summary report of a project taking a new and systematic approach to improving the intellectual effectiveness of the individual human being. A detailed conceptual framework explores the nature of the system composed of the individual and the tools, concepts, and methods that match his basic capabilities to his problems. One of the tools that shows the greatest immediate promise is the computer, when it can be harnessed for direct on-line assistance, integrated with new concepts and methods.

system architecture

Internally the system is a MySQL database DKR system. The main components are the Hyperwords Menu which controls viewing and the underlying DKR system.

DKR Spec | Original Architectural Map | Mikhail's Current Map/Animated Version