A SEMIOTIC APPROACH FOR FLEXIBLE E-GOVERNMENT
SERVICE ORIENTED SYSTEMS
Rodrigo Bonacin
CenPRA, MCT, Rodovia Dom Pedro I, km 143,6, 13069-901, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
M. Cecilia C. Baranauskas
Institute of Computing, Unicamp, Caixa Postal 6176, 13083 970, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
Thiago Medeiros dos Santos
CESET, Unicamp, Rua Paschoal Marmo, 1888, Limeira, São Paulo, Brazil
Keywords: Organisational Semiotics, Tailoring, Service Oriented Architecture, e-Government.
Abstract: E-Gov is a multidisciplinary field which addresses many issues ranging from the social sciences to the
technological ones. One of the big challenges is the underlying complexity to elicit and model requirements.
In practice it is quite hard to encompass the requirements of all citizens or organisations involved in the
project. To deal with this challenge we propose a flexible distributed systems approach, which allies
tailoring concepts to Organisational Semiotics methods in a SOA based architecture. It is based on two
Organisational Semiotics methods: the Semantic Analysis, which delivers a stable ontology of the context,
and the Norm Analysis, that can be used to specify the volatile individual and collective requirements. The
paper shows how norms changes in high level interfaces can have effect on different components of the
software architecture. The architecture is experimented in a proof of concept for an e-Gov project.
1 INTRODUCTION
E-Gov systems represent a typical scenario in which
the integration of human factors in a distributed
system is a critical condition for the interaction and
communication between the involved parts. While it
is a multidisciplinary field and addresses many
issues ranging from the social sciences to the
technological ones, a lot of research efforts have
been put in the technology. The use of
interoperability techniques is especially important in
e-Gov. Several projects are adopting Service-
Oriented Architectures (SOA) solutions to deal with
the interoperability problems.
Besides providing alternative ways of accessing
public services, e-Gov projects are also considered
an opportunity to promote the digital inclusion of the
less favoured people and societies. This diversity of
users and needs certainly represents one of the big
challenges of the Human-Computer Interaction and
Requirements Engineering fields for the integration
of human factors in distributed systems. Citizens
with different abilities, educational levels, physical
conditions and preferences require flexible interfaces
and services.
The development of multiple end-user interfaces
and back-office services that implement all citizens’
needs and preferences is certainly impracticable. To
deal with this challenge, in this work we propose an
approach to create flexible distributed systems,
which aims to make the software adaptation and
personalization a smoother process.
By using proper tools, specialists in social
inclusion, domain specialists and the citizens could
themselves adapt and maintain the system, at least in
part, according to volatile individual and collective
requirements.
Changes in features of distributed system, such
as the related to the business process execution,
quality of service and security, can cause collective
effects on the system use. In resource constrained
environments it is necessary to define who can adapt
each aspect of the system (i.e. users, domain
381
Bonacin R., Cecilia C. Baranauskas M. and Medeiros dos Santos T. (2007).
A SEMIOTIC APPROACH FOR FLEXIBLE E-GOVERNMENT SERVICE ORIENTED SYSTEMS.
In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - ISAS, pages 381-386
DOI: 10.5220/0002358803810386
Copyright
c
SciTePress
specialists, managers, and designers), when this
adaptation can be done, and where and how it is
done. In order to answer these questions it is
necessary to analyse the social aspects that result in
the definition of responsibilities, duties and
permissions of the agents over the system.
We draw on the idea of Tailoring and on the
theoretical and methodological background of
Organisational Semiotics to design for flexibility.
“Tailoring” can be understood as “the activity of
modifying a computer application within the context
of its use” (Kahler et al., 2000, p. 1). The
“Organisational Semiotics” theories and methods
help us to comprehend the organised behaviour by
studying the use of signs in the real world.
The paper is organised as follows: Section 2
discusses the application of OS concepts and
methods, Section 3 discusses an alternative to
provide flexible e-Gov systems, Section 4 presents
the proposed architecture, methods and tools,
Section 5 discusses a proof of concept, and Session
6 concludes.
2 ORGANISATIONAL
SEMIOTICS CONCEPTS AND
METHODS IN DISTRIBUTED
SYSTEM DESIGN
Semiotics, the ancient doctrine of signs, leads us to a
precise understanding of information as various
properties of signs. Anything standing for another
thing or used to signify something else (Peirce,
1931-1958) is an example of a sign: words,
sentences, traffic lights, diagrams, a wave of hand or
a facial expression.
From a semiotic point of view, people can
communicate across multiples organisations, cities,
or countries by sharing signs (socially constructed)
through distributed systems support. By studying the
use of signs in the organised behaviour,
Organisational Semiotics (Liu, 2000) theory and
methods can support us in understanding and
modelling social aspects of distributed systems. In
the e-Gov, entities have to collaborate by using
computational system in order to deliver services to
the population. Semantic, Pragmatic and Social
aspects have influence of in the information sharing
and reuse; methods such Semantic and Norm
analysis (Stamper et al., 1988) can represent the
domain knowledge in order to promote the
interoperability (Fu and Liu, 2006).
In order to reduce the complexity of constructing
tailorable systems, we propose the separation of the
system into two parts (Bonacin et al., 2004): a
“static” part that can be adapted or modified by
programmers, and a “dynamic” part that can be
adapted or modified by end-users (or domain
specialists). We argue that the division of the
“static” and the “dynamic” parts should be mostly
based on social aspects surrounding the system
usage domain.
The architecture and tools to support the
construction of “tailorable” systems is based on two
methods of Organisational Semiotics (Liu, 2000).
The first method adopted is the Semantic Analysis,
which delineates the area of concern of an
organisation and identifies the basic patterns of
behaviour (affordances) of their agents. The
Semantic Analysis produces a stable ontology of the
context. This ontology describes the semantic of the
signs used in a distributed system.
The second method is the Norm Analysis, which
describes the relationships between an intentional
use of signs and the resulting behaviour of
responsible agents in a social context; they also
describe the beliefs, expectations, commitments,
contract, law, culture, as well as business. Besides
the description of the agents’ responsibilities in the
organisation, Norm Analysis can also be used to
analyse the responsibilities of maintaining, adapting
and personalising the system features.
The dynamic part of a “tailorable” system can be
derived from norm specifications; when a norm is
changed or adapted in a specific situation, the
system is also modified. The norms specify what can
be changed and also who is responsible and how the
dynamic part can be changed.
3 PROVIDING AN
E-GOVERNMENT FLEXIBLE
SOLUTION
Information sharing, universal access,
confidentiality, interoperability, open architecture
and standardization are usually addressed in e-Gov
projects (Marchionini et al. 2003). Governments
from the local to the national administration levels
have developed and deployed Information Systems
on the Web and are widely using Information
Technology (IT) in order to promote access to
information, completion of transaction services and
citizen participation (Marchionini et al. 2003).
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) (Newcomer
and Lomow, 2004) has been increasingly used as an
alternative to deal with interoperability issues due to
the very heterogeneous back-office (internal IT
infrastructure) of the public area, and to provide
multi-channel access to e-Gov services.
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We can understand SOA not only from its
technological features, which emphasize
interoperability, reuse, flexibility, among others, but
also as a wider term, which includes concepts,
policies and practices used to provide relevant
services for their customers (Sprott and Wilkes,
2004). According to this point of view, it is
necessary to identify and design relevant and
adapted services from the customer perspective in
order to develop valuable systems.
Nowadays, Web Services is the most popular
technology to implement SOA. In many cases, e-
Gov interoperability patterns give a special attention
to Web Services patterns. In this paper we consider
the Web Services technology and the concepts
behind them as our implementation platform.
We aim to provide architecture and tools for
supporting the construction of “tailorable” SOA
based system. These tools adopt open standards and
web technology to promote the flexibility in SOA
based systems. The tools support the adaptation of
the front-office and back-office systems based on the
modification in norms modelling.
Regarding the front-office, the system can be
adapted for example to multiple devices, necessities,
and preferences through the specification of norms
that are present in each context of use. Each citizen
could adapt the interface according to their needs;
specialists in digital inclusion could customize the
interface to facilitate the system accesses, and
business specialists and/or designers could change
the front-office according to the business changes.
Norms are used to specify aspects related to the
system usage as well as business. In many cases
norms can be linked to end-user interface elements
that represent actions that should be done by the
agents; therefore, if the norm changes the system
will also change. The norms also specify the access
to the interface that provides tailoring and who has
the authority to change each group of norms.
Regarding the back-office, services
orchestrations, compositions, qualities, and network
settings can be defined by modifications in norms
specifications. For example, norms can specify who
can approve a requirement in a business process. A
business specialist could change this norm.
4 ARCHITECTURE AND TOOLS
Figure 1 shows an overview of the architecture for
flexible e-Gov systems. This architecture provides
the platform independency between front-office and
back-office systems by using Web Services
technology. We can have multiple tailorable end-
user interfaces implemented using different
technologies, accessing heterogeneous back-office
systems. These interfaces are individually or
simultaneous affected by the norms.
The ICE (Interface Configuration Environment)
acts changing the front-office, the services
orchestration, and back-office systems. The ICE
receive context information from the architecture
components, evaluate the norms related to context
by using an inference machine and return to the
components an action plan with the changes do be
done.
The NBIC (Norm Based Interface Configurator)
receives the norm specification in Deontic logic,
manage the norms persistence, and also transform it
in a platform specific language that can be
interpreted by an inference machine on ICE. The
norms can be specified or changed by using norm
modellers, programs that aims to provide high level
interfaces for the users. In the architecture, a norm
modeller is any application which specifies or
changes norms through the NBIC.
According to Figure 1, Norms can also be
captured from the system usage and passed to NBIC;
the front-office interface can capture activities that
result on parameters that inform some norms related
to the system usage. In these interfaces, norms
descriptions are not explicitly specified by the users.
4.1 Example of Usage
Figure 2 shows the interaction between a norm
modeller, the NBIC, the ICE, and a hypothetical e-
Gov system. The following simplified scenario
illustrates how this interaction occurs:
System B
Back-office
service tier
System C
Back-office
service tier
System A
Back-office
service tier
WSDL/SOAP
Service Orchestration
ICE NBIC
WSDL/SOAP
Internet
Portal
Other Interfaces
Norm Modellers
Figure 1: The Architecture Overview.
A SEMIOTIC APPROACH FOR FLEXIBLE E-GOVERNMENT SERVICE ORIENTED SYSTEMS
383
A business specialist specifies the following
norm by using the norm modeller interface:
Whenever a citizen request a medical
examination, If the responsible Physician has
free schedule positions (s)he is Obliged to
Confirm the Appointment to the next position;
The norm modeller tools include the norm in the
NBIC by accessing service operations;
The NBIC translates the norms to a platform
specific language required by the inference
machine, and include in the ICE database;
The system access the ICE sending the context
information, through a “perception mechanism”,
it could inform for example: the logged user is
the Physician responsible for the examination,
and there is a request on the queue;
The ICE infers actions to be done by using the
norms specifications and the context
information. It could infer that: Physician is
Obliged to Confirm the Appointment to the next
free position;
By using rules that link the norm (Bonacin et al.,
2004) to system actions in an action plan, it can
infer that: a service that manage the schedule
and an interface to confirm the appointment
must be called at each logon;
The system receives the actions to be done by
accessing the ICE, and an action mechanism
interprets the action plan.
Figure 2: Example of NBIC and ICE in use.
4.2 Tailoring Multiple Architectural
Components
In the architecture, the tailoring activities can result
in changes at multiples components. The next
sessions briefly show alternatives to the construction
of tailorable components.
4.2.1 Tailoring the Front-Office Interface
In order to facilitate the construction of the
perception and action mechanisms and to improve
the productivity of the front-office development, we
have developed the Tailoring Framework (TF)
(Figure 3), which provides developers with an
extension of the Apache Struts Framework (Husted
et al., 2006), a largely used framework for web
development with Java technology.
The static part of the interface can be
implemented as a regular Struts application, and the
dynamic part is specified through new tags to be
included into JSP (Java Server Pages) source code
that access XML based files with the adaptable and
extensible content. The XML files content substitute
the parts indicated as tailorable during the execution
time. It will produce code that can be interpreted by
the web browsers such as: html and script languages.
The information about the application context is
captured by the TF and inserted into ICE in a
transparent way.
Based on the norms specification, the inference
machine infers actions to be done. The actions are
captured by the framework and included in session
variables. Additional tags access the session
variables with the action plan and specify where
changes in the interface will occur and the content to
be presented according to the XML files. The XML
files specify objects and components that are
modified according to the inferred action. The tags
also encapsulate the complexity of representing
norms and usage information.
Figure 3: The Tailoring Framework.
An additional tool, the AMPI tool, can be used
by an interface specialist to manipulate the XML
files. As the interface is defined by the actions
inferred by norms interpretation, the end-user
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application interface provides to them the
opportunity to change the system by changing the
norms specification.
4.2.2 Tailoring the Service Orchestrations
In SOA, services can be orchestrated and composed
in order to constitute complex services according to
business requirements. Nowadays, BPEL (Business
Process Execution Language) (Thatte et al., 2003)
engines are widely used for this purpose.
In the architecture, part of the process is defined
using BPEL and part using norms. As a final result,
when a norm is changed the effects are reflected in
the orchestration. Figure 4 shows the ICE interaction
with business processes execution. In this
alternative, several processes of different engines
instances can invoke the ICE as a partner link.
Figure 4: ICE and Business Processes Execution.
The BPEL invocation element can be distributed
over multiple points of each process specification in
order to inform the usage aspects from different
parts of the architecture. The norms are not
necessarily attached to a specific business process,
but some norms are valid in a wider context, since
they are specified into ICE.
The norms evaluate the context as a whole and
the actions can have effects on many processes. An
action plan is received by each process, and BPEL
eventHandlers deal with each action to be done.
Process activities and decisions are associated to
each action.
4.2.3 Tailoring the Back-Office
According to Figure 5, for each service exported by
the back-office, an additional operation was included
that implements an action mechanism, which
evaluates the action plan and does the appropriated
changes. The back-office service tier links the
actions to the back-office elements.
The main difficulties in the back-office tier
adaptation are the presence of legacy systems with
low level of flexibility. The actions and
consequently the effect of the norm changes on
back-office are restricted by the legacy system
flexibility. However, the flexible part of the systems
(even if small), and the new flexible back-office
services can be changed by norms if the
appropriated mapping is done. For each system, a
specific strategy should be applied according to the
internal architecture of the back office system.
Figure 5: Back-Office tailoring.
Additionally the back-office system should also
provide context information for the ICE. According
to Figure 5, a service tier encapsulates the access
and provides the data structure required by ICE.
5 THE APPLICATION OF THE
PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE
The architecture was applied to a proof of concept in
a web site of an e-Gov project that we are
conducting (Bonacin et. al., 2006). The town of
Catanduva is based on agricultural activities, and it
is starting an industrialization process. The majority
of Catanduva citizens has few or no access to IT
infrastructure.
We were contacted to provide a solution to allow
the citizens to access the government services, but
understanding “access” in a broad sense, i.e., we
were called to design a technically and socially
accessible way of allowing the citizens to effectively
interact with the system. The architecture was
applied in a minimalist web site design where the
citizens could participate of the project given
opinions and including questions about issues
related to the main public areas such as: education,
healthcare, tributes, sport and transport.
We have explored three scenarios: the access by
people with subnormal vision, the access by people
with difficulty to use the mouse, and a business
requirement change that results in the necessity to
audit the site.
Although this web site is not big enough to stress
all the architectural features, it pointed out some
A SEMIOTIC APPROACH FOR FLEXIBLE E-GOVERNMENT SERVICE ORIENTED SYSTEMS
385
issues to be addressed in the practical application in
real use:
Performance and scalability issues. The ICE acts
as a core element of the architecture, the
application requests the ICE many times even in
simple tasks. This issue can be addressed by
using replication and parallel processing;
Security issues. Some elements of the
architecture and tools present security faults, for
example: there is not an authentication of norms
modellers;
Norms complexity and versioning. In a real
situation the number of norms to be manipulated
can be to too high. The manipulation of norms
can be too complex in some cases.
Functionalities such as: conflict detection, and
versioning could improve the NBIC efficiency.
These requirements are important to the
application of the architecture in other services of
the Project, which will be used in large scale (e.g.
healthcare appointments). However the main
objective of the architecture to provide flexibility
was achieved in the proof of concept.
6 CONCLUSIONS
E-Gov systems require flexible applications due to
the diversity of users and stakeholders. The
Semantic and Norm analysis help us to construct a
detailed modelling of the organisation and the
communication process in a distributed system. In
addition it also provides an indication of what are
the static and volatile requirements.
Architecture and tools take advantage of this
property for the construction of flexible distributed
systems. This architecture makes use of SOA
principles to provide links between the Norm
specification in high level interfaces and the changes
at different and heterogeneous components. A case
study was conducted in order to evaluate the
architecture.
As further work we propose the improvement of
the architecture in order to be more flexible, scalable
and secure; we are also improving the support for
norm specification and manipulation. A deeper
analysis of the norm changes occurrences and the
capabilities to reflect changes in e-Gov systems will
be also investigated in next steps.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank CNPq (476381/2004-5) for funding this
project, and colleagues from NIED, IA, IC at
Unicamp, and CenPRA for valuable contributions.
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