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Semiotic Interoperability - a critical step

towards systems integration

AS2010427 - K.A.D.Y.L. KuruppuachchiAS2010377 – M.K.H. Gunasekara

CSC 364 1.5 Seminar 2

Department of Computer Science and Statistics

University of Sri Jayewardenepura

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Overview• Introduction• Semiotics• Semiotics concepts• Information Systems Integration And

Interoperability • Semiotic Interoperability • Semiotic Interoperability framework• Conclusion

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Introduction• Information systems integration is becoming

critical for organization .• Legacy systems often generates needs for

integration with new systems .• The ideal integration of information systems should

be organic and seamless communications among not only technical systems but also process, norms, people, culture as well as organisational strategies.

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Introduction cont'd.• The nature of information systems integration lies

in the successful signs communication among different systems. • Semiotics, as the study of signs, provides the

theoretical foundation on how signs can be successfully communicated among systems.• Organizational semiotics provides a theoretical

foundation for systems interoperability. • A notion of ‘semiotic interoperability’ is proposed

in this research as a paradigm.

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Semiotics• Semiotics, as the study of signs that examines the nature

and properties of all kinds of signs (Morris, 1946; Peirce, 1931), • Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), founded semiotics as the ‘formal doctrine of signs’.• Signs and symbols can be studied, not only in language

(both written and spoken forms), but also in rituals, culture, images and art – in fact, anything that can be ‘read’ as text.• Semiotic researchers do not study signs in isolation, rather

they study the conventions governing the use of signs and sign systems.

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Signs• A sign can mean one thing in one particular cultural context,

but mean something quite different in another• Signs can also change their meaning over time• Semiotics has been used especially in information systems,

management, marketing and organizational studies• Marketing researchers have used semiotics in research on

advertising, brand image and marketing communications (Hackley, 2003)

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Semiotics concepts1. Signifier and signified2. Sign, object and interpretant3. Icon, index and symbol4. Encoding and decoding

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Signifier and signified• Saussure distinguished between two things:• The signifier is a sign or symbol that can stand for

something else. By definition, all words are signifiers since they always stand for something else (e.g. a thought, a feeling, or a thing). A signifier is used by the person wanting to communicate• The signified is what the sign or symbol represents

– what it is interpreted to mean by the receiver of the communication

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Sign, object and interpretant• Peirce distinguished between three things:• Sign : The written word ‘house’ or a drawing of a house.• Object : The category ‘house’.• Interpretant : Anyone who is involved in reading and

interpreting the sign.

• Peirce’s view recognizes that the same sign can have different meanings depending upon the context• For example the word ‘slim’, although the spelling is

the same in both languages, means ‘cleaver’ in Dutch while in English it means ‘thin’.

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Icon, index and symbol• An icon is a sign that signifies its meaning by qualities of

its own; it is like the thing it represents (e.g. the icon of a trash can on Apple and Windows computers)• A sign can also act as an index:

• An indexical sign points to or indicates something else. For example, a wavy line on a road might ‘point to’ bends in the road a few hundred yards ahead.

• A symbol is something that stands for or is symbolic of something else (Eg: the three colors of traffic lights.)• The three categories of signs are not separate and

distinct; a complex sign may be a mixture of several kinds.

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Encoding and decoding• The only way that messages can be sent from

one person to another is via the use of a code • Encoding is the process of transforming any

thought or communication into a message• Decoding is the process of reading the message

and understanding what it means • For example, consider the road code - only

someone who can read the road signs correctly is allowed to obtain a driver’s licence

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Information Systems Integration And Interoperability • Information systems integration is the process that

ensures the interaction between information systems necessary to achieve domain objectives.• The development of information systems

integration can be divided into two phases: technical integration and comprehensive integration.• (Chen and Vernadat, 2004) defines three levels

from enterprise interoperability.

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Semiotic Interoperability • Organisational semiotics • Semiotic framework • Semiotic interoperability

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Organisational semiotics • Sub branch of semiotics.• It is the study of organizations using the concepts

and methods of semiotics.• The scope of organisational semiotics includes both

public and private organizations and concerns their inner workings, their interactions with the environment and with one another.• Addressed fields such as marketing, human

resource management, business law and business ethics

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Semiotic framework

BY Stamper (1973)

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Semiotic Interoperability framework to work together through communication with insight into • the physical properties• transmission structure of signs• placing emphasis on communicating meaning• intention • social consequence of information

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Physical Interoperability• This level is concerned with the physical connection

and transmission channel in sign communication. • The hardware devices of the systems must be

interconnected in order to support the data transmission.

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Empiric Interoperability• This level ensures sign transmission through

compatible channels and protocols between systems. • This level is concerned with the matching of coding

and decoding between sign sender and receiver. • This level ensures the capacity of communication

channels and protocols of different information systems are matched.

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Syntactic Interoperability• Syntactic interoperability ensures data exchange

between systems through compatible formats and structures. • The syntactic interoperability is achieved when the

expression of information, or language, or formula can be recognized by different information systems.

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Semantic Interoperability• This level indicates the ability of interpreting and

converting information into equivalent meaning to allow information sharing between systems.• Semantic level is concerned with the meaning of

signs. • communication is successful if signs are interpreted

for both sender and receiver according to same principles.

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Pragmatic Interoperability• Pragmatics is the level of semiotics concerned with

the relationship between signs and the potential behavior / intention of responsible agents, in a social context.• This level ensures that processes supposed by the

systems in individual contexts can be aggregated to achieve the overall intended purpose.

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Social Interoperability• This level ensures that the resultant interoperable

systems should be coherent with the social commitment, obligation and norms in the organization and support organization's strategy, vision and objectives. • Norms have long been classified into several

categories:• Perceptual• Cognitive• Evaluative• Behavioral

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Example• At the physical level, the telephones must be

connected by the phone line through telephone service providers.• At the empirical level, the voice signals will be

converted into electronic (or optical) signals and transmitted between two telephones.• At the syntactical level, the two people involved in

the telephone conversation must follow the same grammatical rules.

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Example…• At the semantic level, the words, the technical and

non-technical terms, and the things referred to in the conversations must be understood by the two people. The sentences and the contents of the conversation must make sense to both of them.• At the pragmatic level, there is a concern with the

intention (of the caller),and there may be ‘silent’ messages beneath the surface.• At the social level, social commitments and

obligations can often be created or discharged as the result of a conversation.

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Semiotic Interoperability framework

BY Stamper (1973)

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Summary

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Conclusions• The semiotic interoperability provides a theoretical

concept covering how signs are communicated successfully from physical to social level in order to achieve effective information systems integration.

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References• Weizi Li, Kecheng Liu, Shixiong Liu, 2013 ,”Semiotic

Interoperability ”, Published in proceeding of 5th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, Vilamoura, Algrave, Portugal • Kecheng Liu,2000, “SEMIOTICS IN INFORMATION

SYSTEMS ENGINEERING”, Cambridge University Press.• Chen, D., Vernadat, F., 2004. Standards on enterprise

integration and engineering—state of the art. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing 17, 235–253.

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Questions

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Thank You