Structuring persistent chat conversations: experimental results of the chatsistance tool

Abstract

This research targets persistency by introducing new features in ‘Chatsistance’, a persistent chat tool that employs speech act theory and an explicit referencing technique to structure the chat log, and by providing further options for retrieving information. Earlier theory is related to the linguistics and characteristics of user statements. The later technique shows the relation of artefacts in an interconnected context named ‘explicit referencing’. Although speech acts were previously used in the field of chat, it is the first time that this theory has been used for the purpose of enhancing persistency combined with an explicit referencing technique, which together provide a well-established structure that provides greater flexibility for the analysis of content. In this paper, we show how this structuring approach could be useful, by evaluating the results of previous experiments that have used Chatsistance.