DISKURS

An Authoring Tool For Writing Scientific Hypertexts

DISKURS is a small piece of software written in VisualBasic, implemented in a Word for Windows 97 template, named diskurs.dot, and developed in the framework of my research project on 'Cyberscience' at the Institute of Technology Assessment, Vienna. It is designed to facilitate the writing of scientific hypertexts. The potential author does not need to know anything about HTML editing whatsoever. S/he simply uses the regular Word environment to create hypertexts. All technical operations are automated and, hence, the author is free to concentrate on the content of what s/he is writing instead of being distracted by inserting hyperlinks, saving new files, organising the file structure etc.

The name 'DISKURS' is the German word for 'discourse'. This reflects my believe that hypertext tools may be used to improve the written discourse in academia: hypertexts are by their very nature open for amendments from others, for linking to counter or supporting arguments or evidence, for developping arguments further and further. Ultimately, hypertexts may be regarded as 'frozen' discourses or snapshots of the current state of a debate. It is at the core of this part of the above mentioned Cyberscience project to find out whether this potential of hypertexts is realistic. This is why DISKURS shall be extensively tested both with a vew to improving itself and to experiment with the potentials of scientific hypertext writing.

Current version

Version 1.0 was released in November 1999; the current version is 1.2, released in July 2000.

Unfortunately, version 1.2 only works for Word97 on a Windows PC. We are currently exploring the possibility to migrate the template to the Mac world and also to Word 2000 (the template does not work directly in these environments; as far as Mac is concerned, we think that the problem lays with the different way of writing directory pathes, e.g. ":" instead of "\"; with Word2000 we do not have any experience yet). If someone out there in cyberspace would like to help, please get in contact with me, Michael Nentwich <mnent@oeaw.ac.at> – many thanks in advance!

One of its most interesting features is that DISKURS directly creates HTML files which can, in, for instance, a WindowsNT network, be shared with other authors and, if the common file server has a web server software installed, can be made accessible to the internet community for reading.

The current version of DISKURS may be downloaded here for beta-testing: Diskurs.dot (If you use Netscape: keep the Shift-key pressed while clicking with your mouse at the diskurs.dot link! Alternatively, both in Internet Explorer and Netscape you may also right-click with your mouse on the above link and chose "Save Link as" or "Save Target as".). I disclaim responsibility for all damage which this template may cause to your system. I assure you, however, that, to all of my knowledge, it is virus free and has been written to function properly and will not harm to your system.

We encourage experimenting with this tool and hope to get your feedback. Please see the installation instruction section on the help pages.

Authors

DISKURS has been written by Susanne Schwarz-Esser from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne (Germany), on the basis of an idea of and in close collaboration with Dr. Michael Nentwich from the Institute of Technology Assessment, Vienna (Austria).