On formalization and representation in collaborative research

The aim of this chapter is to delve into the issues related to the formalization and transmission of knowledge within the scope of collaborative scientific research and to propose a new approach to address such difficulties. Analyzing methods and practices of collaborative research, the authors highlight that observation and reasoning are systematically prone to flaws, so that theorization is made highly conjectural. To gain reliability, points of views and visions need then a support from a community; in other words, they become public. To allow convergence to take place, conceptualizations need to be understood by people with possibly different cognitive models. Therefore, the authors propose using artifacts that can be strongly structured in individual use while weakly structured in common use. These artifacts take place generally as graphic representations, and as in the case of the arts, they can be realistic or abstract, they can emphasize, hide, or allow different, contrasting and concurrent interpretations of the exposed knowledge.