Based on issue-based argumentation, IBIS is only way to structure a discussion. Designed for collaborative learning of a research paper, CLARE (Collaborative Research And Research Environment) offers an even more structure for organizing a discussion and integrates it with a process model. Thus, it consists of two components, RESRA, which defines the discussion structure, and SECAI, which defines the process model.
RESRA (REpresentation Schema of Research Artifacts) defines several kinds of linked nodes including research papers or sources, which address one or more problems. In response to a problem, a claim may be made regarding how it may be solved, which, in turn, may be supported by evidence, which are generated by research methods, which, in turn, define concepts. All of these nodes and the relationships among them can be associated with critiques. (What are the analogues of these in IBIS?)
SECAI(Summarization, Evaluation, Comparison, Argumentation, and Integration) defines five steps in the discussion. The first two steps, summarization and evaluation are carried out privately, while the next three steps, comparison, argumentation, and integration, involve others. During summarization and evaluation, a user develops a representation of the paper and critiques it, respectively. In the comparison public step, the different users compare the nodes and links of their representations. Next, during argumentation, they critique each others' representations. Finally, in the integration phase, each user links his representation with other representations to form a collective representation of the paper. The system provides special support for these phases. For instance, during comparison, it shows in one window the union of the problems identified by all users; and also gives the number of instances of each kind of node created by each user.
CLARE has been used in some pilot experiments, but the results have been somewhat inconclusive. While users overwhelming felt CLARE helped them betters understand papers, they also felt they did not quite know how to use it.