First of all, I will start with an empty grid and develop my own WebGrid with an interested topic. In order to create a WebGrid, we have to enter the domain and context for the grid. Also we have to provide some of elements which relevant to the context. See Figure 1. I use pet as the domain and dog as the context for this grid because I like dogs. I want to modeling and do the comparison of different kinds of dog because different kinds of dog will have different features.
When I provide some relevant elements(six types of dog) and some relevant constructs(different features of dog) in a coherent sub-domain, I can use the modeling tools(FOCUS and PrinCom) to analysis the relationship of the elements and the constructs.
I feel WebGrid is a very good tool for elicit, model and compare construction. It is friendly use but the domain and context are not distinguish. It is easy to get confuse at the first time of use. On the other hand, we can analyze the elements and constructs with the different ways and forms. We can display the grid or develop a model of the relations between elements and constructs using the PrinCom or FOCUS clustering techniques. FOCUS and PrinCom are the excellent tools for analysis. They will generate a colored graph to present the relationship of the different elements and the different consturcts. FOCUS shows the system as a hierarchical structure and PrinCom shows the system as a spatial map. Also, user can easy to add, delete and edit the elements and constructs by just press the concise button. It is very easy to use and very convenience.
When I see the topics, I try to develope some properties/constructs which are relate to some or all of topics. So that I can compare them and see which one is similar to the others and which one is different with others.
In the grid, we can clearly to see different information relevant to the elicitation on the screen such as all topics/elements and properties/constructs that I entered so far will shown in sub-windows, and the various options that allow the grid to be examined, edited and analyzed will shown on the screen as well. When I click on "Distinguish", WebGrid generates HTML for the screen where I am explicitly asked to add one or more new elements. Thus WebGrid guides the elicitation through feedback about relevant actions that I may take, but the system is strongly non-modal in that no particular action is forced upon the user.
When I want to analysis the elements and constructs, I can just click on "FOCUS" or "PrinCom". FOCUS will sort the grid for proximity between similar elements and similar constructs. PrinCom uses principal component analysis to represent the grid in minimum dimensions.
WebGrid allows us to commence an elicitation based on another person's grid, either using just the elements in it and developing our own constructs, or using both elements and constructs but commencing with all the rating unknown(an "exchange" grid). In this project, we are using the first case. Our new grid may be compared with the original one to determine what constructs correspond in the two grids after we press "Compare". The RepGrid analysis selects the original one's(BrianGaines547's) construct that most closely matches my construct and displays it below mine, adding graphs of the matches between constructs and elements. When I make the distinction "not much graphics--a lot of graphics" the original one has available a closely related distinction that he terms "intelligent system". Thus my construct "questionnaire--non-questionnaire" is shown as corresponding to the original one's construct "novel communication-- conventional communication". In this case, my construct is concrete and operational whereas the original one's is abstract, and we may both gain by understanding and discussing the difference in terminology and the basis for it.
Our presentation topic is Visual Programming. I choose some elements which are relevant to this topic such as Appware, Khoros and KBVision, they are visual environment. KidSim and VisSim are visual programming language. Visual Basic is the one consider as visual programming language, however, it is not indeed. And I choose some relevant constructs to do the modeling and analyze.
When I use FOCUS to analysis this grid, I can easily to see that KBVision, Appware and Khoros are the most similar elements and similar constructs. All of them are the visual programming environment. KidSim and VisSim are the most similar elements and constructs. Both of them are visual programming language. Visual Basic is the one that is different with the other elements because it is not actual visual programming language.
When I use PrinCom to analysis this grid, I can see that Appware, KBVision and Khoros are visual environment, not language. They are based on a flow-chart formalism to graphically construct the program with the pre-built functions. VisSim and KidSim are language. They are also based on a flow-chart formalism and pictorial represented. So I can know that visual programming language and visual environment are usually tightly integrated with each other. We can see that Visual Basic is not relate to visual environment and visual language. It is textual language and is not under visual programming section.