Impetus

Because: New information can seem overwhelming when landscapes are vast, inconsistent, and evolving.

Therefore: The Association for Information Accuracy has tooling and services specially designed for such situations.

• Membership can grant access to tooling, services, and private community.

Focus: exactly everything needed (and no more)

Some of the basic mantras of the tool ecosystem philosophy at work here are below:

So, go ahead: Grow a knowledge garden that meets your own exact needs (and the needs of your team or organization). Dabble. And don't be afraid to ask for help.

Member benefits, listed and described

Members of the AforIA can get certain benefits, outlined below:

• Software tool. Members have a license to use and run the AforIA's unique information tooling. Members may download, install, and host knowledge gardening solutions.
• Education. Members can get access to the software manual, auxiliary reference software for more advanced use, and tutorial content, plus can ask for educational material on specific topics.
• Support. Members can receive support for their questions and situations, to help ensure success with their activities.
• Facilitation. Members can request facilitated sessions. At times, the extra help capturing and exploring information, or assistance with certain initiatives, might seem needed.
• Community. Members can be added to AforIA's community discussion and collaboration tooling, to enjoy fluid group and chat interactions.
• E-mail and Chat. Members can receive their own AforIA email and chat accounts. On desktop, mobile, and web.

The core software application leveraged by the AforIA comes in the form of a virtual machine that you can host (e.g., in VirtualBox or perhaps Proxmox). The application's primary utility is to provide a basic (but uncommon, flexible, and powerful) "real hypertext" UI at the idea grain that permits visible, bidirectional link creation and navigation in the web browser. For some, the primary utilty may be in the human interface affordances, which include bias notation and visualization.

• You are invited read more about the background context, implementation, and academic considerations as described in the corresponding 2014 MWAIS proceedings conference paper titled "Tracking mental model bias with spatial hypertext". In this paper, you can find a detailed description introducing the core system available to members of the AforIA, with some screenshots and a functional text description in the included section titled "Research-in-Progress".
• To start augmenting your research with the tooling as introduced in the 2014 MWAIS "Tracking mental model bias" paper, please consider membership in the AforIA as one route that is available to you.

Applying for membership

As a core benefit, each member of the private association receives a license to use the software made available by the association as long as they remain a member. Under this model, each user of the association's software must be a member of the association (this includes users of any instances that members choose to set up). As long as you are a member of the association, you have a license to both use and run (including to download, install, and customize) the software (including unlimited instances per server, and including unlimited server installs).

Plus, members can get all the other benefits of the association (educational resources, help/support, online community, and email and chat accounts). All as part of the private association.

Currently, there are three membership types available, differentiated as follows:

1. Core: $100 per person per year. Gives access to: Software, Literature, Tutorials, Support.
2. Connected: $200 per person per year. Gives access to: Everything in Core, plus: Facilitation, Community discussion platform.
3. Complete: $300 per person per year. Gives access to: Everything in Connected, plus: Email account (E2EE supported), Chat account (E2EE supported).

For organizations

Need something extra? For example, do you require a model other than direct association membership? Just let us know.

Find out how AforIA might fit your needs and help to achieve or exceed your, and your organization's, knowledge-gardening goals.

Downloads

Active members can conveniently access the software, its corresponding literature, and more from the association's digital store.