What: An argumentative groupware approach for organizing and documenting research activities

Abstract

The topic of this paper is a process‐vs.‐product design method representation called Argumentative Writing (AW). Argumentative writing is a multi‐representation approach for conducting and reporting research projects. AW has at least two representations: one for structuring the problem‐understanding/solving process and one for communicating its product to others. We discuss WHAT, a hypertext‐based tool for AW. In WHAT (Writing with a Hypermedia‐based Argumentative Tool), the design process is captured using Rittel's Issue Based Information Systems (IBIS) method (Conklin, 1988; Hashim, 1990a; Rittel, 1980). The product of the design process is represented in WHAT using a general document‐representation scheme. In the Introduction we raise four major issues that we explore in the rest of the paper. Also in the Introduction, we show the impact the WHAT approach can have on organizational computing applications such as business education and training (Hashim, Rathnam, & Whinston, 1991) and the design of dialectical organizational information systems. The section “A Methodological Basis for AW Tools”; deals with the rationale behind choosing the IBIS method in capturing the design process. The section after that explains WHAT, and the section following it explores its use as a groupware tool. The applicability of WHAT and its pros and cons are discussed in two separate sections. In the Conclusion we outline the potentiality of the approach and present suggestions for its further development. Since our first reporting on WHAT (Hashim, 1990b), the AW approach was found applicable to educational, scientific, and business areas. One such application is for structuring case discussions in business schools (Hashim et al., 1991).