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A board for evidence, questions, and connected thinking.

Netah Board combines a flexible visual canvas with source-grounded analysis. It is designed to help people examine their reasoning—not hide it behind an automatic answer.

Walking through a first board

These steps are one path through, not a required order. A board is a workspace: you can arrange before you have anything on it, or connect two thoughts before either has a source. The example below is a single board being built up, one step at a time.

  1. Step 1: Start with a thought or a source.

    Type straight onto the canvas and what you write becomes a node — Enter opens the next one, Shift+Enter commits it and connects it to the last. Or add a document, table, image, or note and the file arrives as a node of its own. Evidence can come first, or arrive later once a thought turns out to deserve it.

    A thought typed onto an otherwise empty board, with a file beside itA board named Mill Creek · water quality. The thought “Nitrate spikes follow heavy rain” has been typed straight onto the canvas and is now a node. Directly below it a second text box is open and still empty, showing the placeholder “Type a thought” and the hint “Enter for the next, Shift+Enter connects them”. To the right, the spreadsheet mill-creek-nitrate.csv has been added to the same board as a node of its own.Mill Creek · water qualityNitrate spikes followheavy rainType a thoughtEnter for the next · Shift+Enter connects themmill-creek-nitrate.csv

  2. Step 2: Arrange it.

    A new project opens with one arrangement already on it: a web, a shape, a line or path, or freeform. Reshape it, resize it, or add more — a project can hold several arrangements at once, each sized independently, and the nodes an arrangement holds move with it when it changes.

    The board's nodes placed on a Triangle arrangement, with a smaller Path arrangement belowThe same board, now held by an arrangement named Triangle: two nested triangle rings carrying three nodes. The top vertex holds the thought “Nitrate spikes follow heavy rain”. The centre holds the thought “Is the creek getting worse?”. The lower-left vertex holds the spreadsheet mill-creek-nitrate.csv. The lower-right vertex is still empty. Below it, a second arrangement named Path sits in the same project at a much smaller size: a line that turns twice, with four evenly spaced positions marked along it.TriangleNitrate spikes follow heavy rainIs the creek getting worse?mill-creek-nitrate.csvPath

  3. Step 3: Connect what belongs together.

    Draw a connection between any two nodes: a thought to a source, a source to another source, or one thought to another. Say what the link is — related, reinforces, contradicts, same person or thing, same event, or needs explanation. The board preserves the structure you chose instead of deciding that structure for you.

    Four nodes on the board joined by three connections, one marked as a contradictionThe same Triangle arrangement, now with a node at every vertex: council-water-report-2023.pdf has taken the lower-right one. Three connections have been drawn by hand. An unlabelled connection joins the thought “Is the creek getting worse?” to the thought “Nitrate spikes follow heavy rain”. A connection marked Reinforces joins “Nitrate spikes follow heavy rain” to the spreadsheet mill-creek-nitrate.csv. A connection marked Contradicts curves beneath the board between mill-creek-nitrate.csv and council-water-report-2023.pdf — the local sampling log and the published council report do not agree.TriangleNitrate spikes follow heavy rainIs the creek getting worse?mill-creek-nitrate.csvcouncil-water-report-2023.pdfReinforcesContradicts

  4. Step 4: Bring someone in.

    Send a single-use invitation to a signed-in editor, or a read-only link to anyone. Editors can add and arrange material. Ownership, sharing controls, and whether the project uses AI at all stay with you, enforced on the server rather than only hidden in the interface.

    A sharing panel: a single-use editor invitation, a read-only link, and the settings that stay with the ownerA sharing panel for the board. At the top, an editor invitation link marked single-use, and separately a read-only link that anyone can open. Below them, the two people on the project: you, as owner, and colleague@school.edu, as an editor. A second column headed “Stays with the owner” lists three settings an editor cannot change, each marked with a padlock: ownership, sharing, and whether this project uses AI at all. A closing note reads: editor invitations require sign-in, are single-use, and expire.ShareEditor invitationSingle-usenetahboard.com/invite/…Read-only linkPeopleyou · Ownercolleague@school.edu · EditorStays with the ownerOwnershipSharingAI for this projectEditor invitations requiresign-in, are single-use,and expire.

  5. Step 5: Move from arrangement to inquiry.

    The board guide reads filenames, table structure, the words you typed, and the relationships you drew — never the contents of your files — and points at places worth looking: a field two tables share, a source nothing connects to, a contradiction you marked. It runs on our servers and sends nothing to an AI provider. Separately, and only if the owner has AI switched on, you can select particular sources and ask for an analysis that cites them — or select thoughts and get questions about your reasoning, which is what you get when there is no evidence to ground a conclusion in.

    The board guide reporting on the Mill Creek boardThe board guide, run on the board from the previous step. It reports: “1 promising place to investigate”. Netah Board reviewed 2 files, 4 nodes, and 3 connections. This first pass uses filenames, table structure, and the relationships you chose—not private cell contents. The one place it points at is “1 contradiction is worth testing” — Check whether the sources use different dates, units, populations, definitions, or levels of confidence before deciding which is stronger. Under the heading “Questions worth asking” it offers: “Could a difference in date, unit, definition, or source quality explain the contradiction?” Nothing is sent anywhere to produce this; the guide reads only filenames, table structure, and the connections drawn by hand.BOARD GUIDE1 promising place to investigateNetah Board reviewed 2 files, 4 nodes, and 3 connections.This first pass uses filenames, table structure, and therelationships you chose—not private cell contents.1 contradiction is worth testingCheck whether the sources use different dates,units, populations, definitions, or levels ofconfidence before deciding which is stronger.Questions worth askingCould a difference in date, unit, definition, orsource quality explain the contradiction?
    The board guide. Nothing leaves the board to produce this.
    Two sources selected for analysis, and the cited finding that comes backThe optional analysis step, available only when a project owner has turned AI on. Two of the board's files have been ticked by hand — mill-creek-nitrate.csv and council-water-report-2023.pdf — showing “2/6 sources selected · 25 MB maximum” beside a button reading “Analyze selected sources”. The report that comes back states a finding, “The two sources count different sampling dates”, at medium confidence, and beneath it the citation it rests on: mill-creek-nitrate.csv, rows 44 to 61, against page 12 of council-water-report-2023.pdf. Every conclusion shows which source, and which part of it, supports the claim.Read selected sourcesOptionalmill-creek-nitrate.csvcouncil-water-report-2023.pdf2/6 sources selected · 25 MB maximumAnalyze selected sourcesSOURCE-GROUNDED REPORTThe two sources count different sampling datesmill-creek-nitrate.csv · rows 44–61against p. 12 of the council report · medium confidence
    Optional, and off unless the project owner turns it on: selected files are sent to OpenAI only when someone asks.

What the AI does—and does not do

AI is optional. A project owner can turn it off for every editor. When it is on, nothing is sent merely because a file was uploaded: someone must select sources and deliberately request an analysis.

The resulting report is expected to cite its supporting sources. It can still be incomplete or wrong, so users should inspect the cited material and make their own judgment.

Help shape the pilot

We are inviting a small number of educators and researchers to test Netah Board with real, non-sensitive project material and tell us what should improve.

Try the pilot Contact us