Aggregating and presenting research results with the help argument maps
Recently we have finished a conference mapping for a scientific conference on sustainable consumption.
"Conference mapping" is a format that we have developed as a commercial service in order to support our platform FuerundWider.org. The conference "Sustainable Consumption: Towards Action and Impact" took place in November in Hamburg. More than 100 presentations were held.
You'll find a report leading through the map and the map itself at
http://workspace3.debattenprofis.de/suco11_conferencemap.pdf
I am posting this message on the impact list because both the report and the map show which requirements an argument map intended for scientific policy advice will have to meet in the end. The basic challenge seems to me that even though we arranged the 'content' of the conference in a series of argument maps (which are constructed in a such a way that they follow two storylines that we had identified in advance), the reader of these maps still has to invest a great amount of interpretation work in order to make sense of the maps. Part of the work is necessary because the maps just mentions and links research projects: you still have to read the papers or at least the abstracts. Also, the projects gives an impression about the amount and the kind of work that goes into collection and structuring of the relevant information.
With the help of the maps, I tried to formulate an argument stressing the relevance of individual consumption behavior for the achievement of sustainabilty goals. <If this had been a closed list, I would post the not yet published version of the (German) text in order to demonstrate the difference between the map and interpretative reading.>
I'd be happy to receive any comments an how the map/the report is done and how do you think it can help both the sustainability-research community and the research management to plan further steps and projects.
Ralf
Dr. Ralf Grötker
______________________________________
SCHNITTSTELLE: Making sense of sciencegroetker@jb-schnittstelle.de
www.jb-schnittstelle.de
