Tools and Methods

Understanding the dynamics of knowledge communities from their digital traces requires specifically designed tools to turn those raw textual traces into actual heterogeneous knowledge networks.

Especially this first-level processing becomes quite a challenge when it comes to transform free text (like abstract from publications, comments extracted from forums) into a human-comprehensible description. Most of the time lexical analysis is sufficient to obtain a realistic lexical model of the precise topics being addressed in a text, even though certain type of data may require finer treatments or benefit from qualitative analysis (see the study about online forums)

More generally, the production of socio-semantic reconstructions: lexical extraction, heterogeneous maps, statistical analysis, etc. can be realized on any given corpus through scripts I wrote and that can be readily used on this website:

http://manager.cortext.net. The CorText Manager offers a digital space where one can upload her/his own corpora, analyze them and share her/his results. One can read a succinct documentation of the scripts on this  dedicated website.

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Tags: heterogeneous network, knowledge community, Knowledge representation, phylogeny, semantic network, socio-semantic, textual analysis, tool