Project Description

The Problem

In our every day life we face many difficult documents which are interpreted by many different sources. The Bible, Costumer's Requirements, Winnie the Poo and Shakespeare's Sonnets - all of these documents have a lot of context surrounding them.

Usually a text will be unclear when there is a difference between the author's meaning and the reader's interpretation which presents itself in vague words and ideas, difficulties and contradictions , and many questions that arise from the text. When given an unclear text the mission is to get as close as you can to the meanings of the author. The more the text is vague the more information gathers around it. This information comes to solve the difficulties that arise from the text. Controlling this information is the key to understanding the text.

This mission is very difficult considering the amount and nature of the information surrounding the document. The information is scattered around the globe, written by different authors (with different credibility), relating to different aspects of the text. It is necessary to go over the information, to distinct the important points and to organize them. A single person cannot complete this task in a reasonable time.

The Solution

Tree of Knowledge (ToK) is a data management system. Tok's main purpose is to help the user in understanding unclear texts. When given an unclear text the mission is to get as close as you can to the meanings of the author. Given a main text and different information sources regarding this text ToK enables the user to gather, organize and connect information between the sources and the main text. Tok allows the user to easily browse the gathered information.