Using Google's Apps for the Collaborative Construction, Refinement and Formalization of Knowledge

The utility of knowledge depends on how it is developed, refined and tested. Where knowledge concerns more than one individual, its value is increased through social processes involving cycles of tacit and explicit sharing for intersubjective criticism. Sciences and many organizations have well developed processes for managing the tacit-explicit cycling to produce what Vines and Hall call "formal knowledge". Nousala and Hall have studied the emergence of informal communities concerned to develop and refine bodies of knowledge relating to particular issues. The present paper describes one such emergent community’s use of ICT to facilitate knowledge formalization. Their most effective solution uses free Internet applications in the Google "cloud" made possible by changes to Google Docs only released in January 2010. Although involving several poorly documented "apps" and their "gadgets" the resulting architecture is surprisingly coherent, user friendly and apparently robust.