Semiotics and Grid Computing for Collaborative Work

1. Department of Computer Science The University of Reading Semiotics and Grid Computing for Collaborative Work Kecheng Liu www.ais.reading.ac.uk/ Seminar for the Software Institute, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, 8 September, 2003

2. Agenda • Grid technology and applications • Virtual organisations and collaborative work • An organisational semiotics view • Modelling the human aspects in Grid computing • Summary and future work

3. Grid technology and applications • Grid technology • infrastructure for distributed and collaborative computing • common resource-access and operational services across virtual organisations • Applications - key features • Multi actors, large scale distributed and collaborative work • Sharing resources • infrastructural resources • value adding resources • Extended form of CSCW

4. Grid technology and applications (cont.) Grid computing components Fabric level Middleware Development tools Applications Local resources managements – Operating systems, job queuing, libraries, TCP/IP … Network resources management – Computers, networks, storage systems, data resources Distributed resources bound services – Communication, sign-on and security, process management, data access, … Languages, libraries, debuggers, monitoring, resource brokers, … Most in form of portals, in scientific computation, engineering, e-science, e-business, e-government, …

5. Virtual Organisations • A temporary network of autonomous organisations • cooperate based on complementary competencies • connect their information systems to those of their partners • aiming at developing, making, and distributing products in cooperation • Based on the metaphor of virtual memory of a computer (Mowshowitz 1994)

6. Virtual Organisations (cont.) • Distribution of resources • resources, competences and demands • Collaboration between actors • member organisations, organisational components or individuals • Shared communication protocols. • not only use the same language (syntax of the protocols), but also understand the meaning (semantics of communications). • Mechanism for task managements and executing coordinated actions • mechanism for swapping between jobs, delivering resources, controlling multi-threaded operations across several sites.

7. Organisational Semiotics • Semiotics is the study of signs • examines the nature and properties of all kinds of signs • Signs • basic units for human and machine-based communication • Organisational Semiotics • to study the properties and behaviour of signs in organisational contexts and business practice • To treat an organisation as an information system • Information is created, stored, and processed for communication and coordination and for achieving the organisational objectives.

8. Organisational Semiotics (cont.) The Semiotic Framework (Stamper 1973, 1996)

9. Modelling the Human Aspects Semantics • Functions of semantics and lifetime management in Grid (Foster et al. 2002) • A mapping between computational behaviour and human behaviour, based on business domain. • Semantic models define the resource management mechanism for detection, allocation, creation and lifetime management of Grid services.

10. Modelling the Human Aspects (cont) Pragmatics • Concerned with business context • Involves modelling the roles and access to Grid services • responsibility, obligation, right and privilege. • Identification of roles of all registered users • major collaboration processes determine the resource access and control model • Link the resource access and control model

11. Modelling the Human Aspects (cont) Social aspect • Social, organisational and cultural rules on the use of Grid • Institutional policies and accepted common practice in collaborative work • Perceived benefits and drawbacks • Identify essential rules and incorporate them into the e-infrastructure • Promote the sharing of resources and protect the individual institution’s interest and integrity.

12. Modelling the Human Aspects (cont) Integrated modelling of semantic, pragmatic and social aspects

13. Modelling the Human Aspects (cont) • Link the Integrated model with the Grid infrastructure • Enable members within the Grid environment • act as if in a virtual organisation • share across multiple heterogeneous platforms for collaboration.

14. User’s agent SPS model User’s agent SPS model User’s agent SPS model Application services’ agent Information/data resources’ agent SPS model SPS model Modelling the Human Aspects (cont) Portal Application services (on the Internet) SPS model Information /data resources (on the Internet)

15. Modelling the Human Aspects (cont) • User agents – to capture and interpret the user’s requests. • The SPS model • an ontology representation of responsibility and institutional norms, • defines the user’s roles and behaviour. • Application services • the SPS model • Specifies all the services available on the Grid, • Plus responsibility & social/institutional constraints. • Information/data resources • the SPS model - location and availability of resources with extension of social/institutional constraints. • The portal – reference to the SPS model which serves as policies for defining levels of access • responsibility, obligation, privilege and right) • allocate and manage the Grid services.

16. Summary and future work • The Grid computing • Great infrastructure for collaborative work in a secure and trusted environment • Virtual organisations become reality • Human aspects are essential as part of the infrastructure • Semantics, pragmatics, and social issues • Organisational Semiotics offers an useful approach • Representing the human aspects in work practice • Incorporating the human aspects to Grids http://www.ais.reading.ac.uk/