Exploring Your Knowledge
Navigate your captured knowledge — find ideas by session, speaker, topic, or relationship.
Once your seminar discussions have been processed, the extracted knowledge lives in your team's PrivateLanguage workspace. This page explains how to navigate and use it.
The Knowledge Workspace
Your workspace is organized around knowledge atoms — individual ideas extracted from your discussions. Each atom contains:
- The idea itself — a clear, synthesized statement (not a raw quote)
- Action type — what kind of move it represents (proposal, build-on, critique, constraint, question, or discovery)
- Scope tag — the topic cluster it belongs to (e.g.,
visual-thinking) - Contributing speakers — which anonymized participants contributed to the idea
- Timestamp — when the idea emerged in the session
- Context — what the group was discussing when this idea surfaced
How Atoms Relate to Each Other
Ideas don't exist in isolation. The pipeline detects three types of relationships between atoms:
| Relationship | What It Means |
|---|---|
| BUILDS_ON | One idea extends, refines, or advances another. A chain of build-on relationships shows how thinking evolved. |
| CRITIQUES | One idea challenges or identifies problems with another. These relationships highlight productive tensions. |
| CONSTRAINS | One idea establishes a boundary that limits or shapes another. Constraints often redirect the group's exploration. |
Following these relationships lets you trace the evolution of ideas across a discussion — how a proposal sparked a critique, which led to a refined build-on, shaped by a constraint someone surfaced.
Finding Ideas
There are several ways to locate specific knowledge:
By Session
Each ingestion run corresponds to a class session (e.g., Week 1 Tuesday, Week 2 Wednesday). You can browse atoms by session to revisit what emerged from a particular meeting.
By Speaker
Filter by speaker label (Speaker 1, Speaker 2, etc.) to see all contributions from a particular participant. Remember, speaker numbers are consistent within a session but may refer to different people across sessions.
By Topic (Scope Tag)
Scope tags group related ideas across sessions. Searching for a tag like visual-thinking will surface every idea tagged with that scope, regardless of which session it came from. This is powerful for seeing how a theme developed over the semester.
By Action Type
Filter by action type to focus on particular kinds of contributions:
- Show only proposals to see what new directions were introduced
- Show only critiques to understand where the group pushed back
- Show only discoveries to find surprise connections and insights
The Role of Reflections
Some knowledge atoms may include reflections — additional layers of meaning added after the initial extraction. Reflections deepen understanding by:
- Connecting an idea to broader theoretical frameworks
- Noting how an idea relates to themes from other sessions
- Adding context that wasn't explicit in the original discussion
Reflections are generated by the system and reviewed by the instructor. They're meant to enrich the knowledge base, not replace the original ideas.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Knowledge Base
- Check in after each session — browse the newly captured atoms while the discussion is fresh in your memory
- Follow relationship chains — start with an idea that interests you and trace its connections
- Use scope tags for your projects — when writing papers or preparing presentations, search by relevant topic tags
- Compare across weeks — see how the group's thinking on a topic evolved over the semester
- Submit feedback — if an idea was captured incorrectly or important context is missing, use the feedback tool to let us know