Elaine C S Hayashi

Alessandro Arpetti
email: arpetti@gmail.com

M Cecília
email: cecilia@ic.unicamp.br

C Baranauskas

Preliminary Reflections on Affective Affordance in HCI: A Semiotic-Informed Perspective

Keywords: Affectability, Emotional design, Affordance, Affective affordances, Semiotic onion, Organizational Semiotics, Socially aware design, Humancomputer interaction 1

In spite of some divergence on interpretations of the concept of "affordance", the term is fundamental in HCI and interaction design. More recently, the recognition of the affective quality of systems is becoming increasingly important as well. As an emerging subject, there is a lack of discussion on related concepts and, ultimately, on their practical implications. The objective of this paper is to bring into discussion the concept of affect under the perspective of affordance. From a socio-cultural view, this paper articulates affective affordances within the theoretical references of Organizational Semiotics and the Socially Aware Design; and concludes with prospections on potential applications for the design of technology.

Introduction

Ubiquitous computing devices, wearable, tangible or natural user interface tools, social software: these are some of the ways in which Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become a pervasive part of our personal and social lives. As an intrinsic part of our daily interactions and socially constructed reality, technology must be aligned with our intentions, values, beliefs and social practices. The design process focused only on the technical system itself is no longer enough [START_REF] Stamper | A Semiotic Theory of Information and Information Systems[END_REF]. This new reality demands new theories and methods in HCI [START_REF] Harrison | The three paradigms of HCI[END_REF][START_REF] Pereira | On the Relationships between Norms, Values and Culture: Preliminary Thoughts in HCI. Information and Knowledge Management in Complex Systems[END_REF], which now have to consider and reflect other elements that used to be left aside, such as: social values, emotions, intentions of use, and the device's, the users' and the environment's conditions and characteristics [START_REF] Neris | User Interface Design Informed by Affordances and Norms Concepts[END_REF][START_REF] Pereira | On the Relationships between Norms, Values and Culture: Preliminary Thoughts in HCI. Information and Knowledge Management in Complex Systems[END_REF].

The concept of affordance, analyzed under an Organizational Semiotic (OS) perspective, has provided basis to inform the design of an inclusive social network [START_REF] Neris | User Interface Design Informed by Affordances and Norms Concepts[END_REF]. Similarly, the present article builds upon the original definition of affordance from Gibson [START_REF] Gibson | The Theory of Affordances. The People, Place[END_REF] to discuss design for Affectability [START_REF] Hayashi | Affectability' and Design Workshops: taking actions towards more sensible design[END_REF]. At a higher level of abstraction, this article investigates the concept of affordance, proposing a discussion on Affective affordance framed by an artifact from OS: the Semiotic Onion [START_REF] Stamper | A Semiotic Theory of Information and Information Systems[END_REF][START_REF] Liu | Semiotics in Information Systems and Engineering[END_REF]. Although the term Affective affordance had been used before, e.g., in [START_REF] Tang | Perceived affordances of web advertisements: Implications for information artifacts design[END_REF][START_REF] Vugt | Affective affordances: Improving interface character engagement through interaction[END_REF][START_REF] Krampen | Semiotics in Architecture and Industrial/Product Design[END_REF], the field of HCI could benefit from further discussion and informed formalization from a socio-technical perspective. We revisit concepts of affordance and we use the perspective of the Semiotic Onion [START_REF] Stamper | A Semiotic Theory of Information and Information Systems[END_REF][START_REF] Stamper | Understanding the Roles of Signs and Norms in Organisations: a Semiotic Approach to Information Systems Design[END_REF][START_REF] Liu | Semiotics in Information Systems and Engineering[END_REF] and the Socially Aware Design [START_REF] Baranauskas | Social Awareness in HCI[END_REF][START_REF] Baranauskas | Socially Aware Computing[END_REF] to articulate the concept of Affective affordance with possible design practices. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 summarizes the concepts that form the theoretical bases of the analysis presented in Section 3, which articulates affect and affordances. Section 4 draws on Section 3 to discuss the application of these concepts in interaction design. Section 5 concludes this paper.

Theoretical References

Organizational Semiotics (OS) [START_REF] Stamper | A Semiotic Theory of Information and Information Systems[END_REF][START_REF] Stamper | Understanding the Roles of Signs and Norms in Organisations: a Semiotic Approach to Information Systems Design[END_REF][START_REF] Liu | Semiotics in Information Systems and Engineering[END_REF] provides artifacts and methods to understand, model and design information systems. Information systems, from the OS perspective, are a result of social interactions. Starting from an informal level, a community (organization) is seen as a collection of members and the values, beliefs and habits of each member are relevant to form the group. In a formal level, the patterns of behavior from the informal level are modeled into norms that compose requirements in the direction of the technical layer, in which the system per se is derived. These informal, formal and technical layers form the Semiotic onion [START_REF] Stamper | A Semiotic Theory of Information and Information Systems[END_REF][START_REF] Liu | Semiotics in Information Systems and Engineering[END_REF]. The analogy with an onion illustrates how each level is embedded into the other to compose meaningful information systems, in which computer systems (or digital artifacts) are embedded in the formal and informal organization. As Stamper et al. [START_REF] Stamper | A Semiotic Theory of Information and Information Systems[END_REF] argue, usually traditional design methods tend to focus on the formal and technical levels -or layers -without meeting the requirements of the informal level of the organization. The layers of the Semiotic Onion are rooted in the definition from Hall [START_REF] Hall | The silent language[END_REF], who proposes that cultural conventions (the way humans operate) can be classified in informal, formal and technical levels.

The Socially Aware Design [START_REF] Baranauskas | Social Awareness in HCI[END_REF][START_REF] Baranauskas | Socially Aware Computing[END_REF], in its turn, was based on the Semiotic Onion to propose a design flow that starts in the society (with its needs and abilities), enters the onion, goes throughout the layers until reaching the technical one; and goes back to impact society, as technology changes the norms and informal practices of a social group.

The Semiotic Onion and the Socially Aware Design were the starting point for our research on affect in design processes, and they also form the basis for the discussion we present in Sections 3 and 4.

Affective computing [START_REF] Picard | Affective computing[END_REF] is a relatively new field that concerns the development of digital technology that can automatically recognize, interpret and respond (or adapt behavior) according to affective expressions of users. In order to grant computation systems with this ability to recognize affect, affective responses need to be categorized and treated as pieces of information. It is, therefore, assumed that emotions are internally created and then put out to the world, existing independently of context and interaction. Boehner et al. [START_REF] Boehner | How Emotion is Made and Measured[END_REF] call "Informational approaches" those approaches that are in line with Affective Computing, in which emotions are seen as fixed information. On a different direction, the authors call "Interactional approach" the point of view that considers affect as dynamic results of social interactions, loaded with cultural influences and rich in interpretation possibilities.

In line with interactional approaches, however not totally denying informational ones, the concept of Affectability [START_REF] Hayashi | Affectability' and Design Workshops: taking actions towards more sensible design[END_REF] delineates an endeavor to understand the characteristics that have the capacity of evoking varying (which can depend on cultures or contexts) affective responses from users interacting with a digital artifact in a given context (or environment). The objective is to bring awareness to designers on the creation of products with improved affective quality.

Affective quality can be defined as the characteristics of an object (or place, events, systems) that can influence the affective state of a person [START_REF] Zhang | The Importance of Affective Quality[END_REF], as he/she perceives those characteristics in the object. This perception can be based on how easy/hard to use, how pleasant/not pleasant, boring/exciting, etc., the object is.

Affordance is a concept created by Gibson [START_REF] Gibson | The Theory of Affordances. The People, Place[END_REF], who defines it as the action possibilities that an animal perceives from an environment. With the word "affordance", Gibson wants to refer to both: the environment and the animal, in a way that one is complementary to the other. In Kaptelinin and Nardi's [START_REF] Kaptelinin | Affordances in HCI: toward a Mediated Action Perspective[END_REF] interpretation of the Gibsonian theory of affordances, "animals directly perceive affordances as possibilities for action in the environment, which are determined, on the one hand, by the objective properties of the environment, and, on the other hand, by the action capabilities of the animal" [11, p. 968]. Moreover, as Gibson [START_REF] Gibson | The Theory of Affordances. The People, Place[END_REF] explains, "The perceiving of an affordance is not a process of perceiving a value-free physical object to which meaning is somehow added in a way that no one has been able to agree upon; it is a process of perceiving a value-rich ecological object." [6, p. 60].

To Gibson, affordances exist independently of whether or not they are perceived or desired by the actor. The classic example is that of a chair. A chair affords sitting, even when the actor does not will to sit. Even when one cannot see the chair, it is still sit-able [START_REF] Torenvliet | We can't afford it!: the Devaluation of a Usability Term[END_REF]. This constitutes a point of divergence between Gibson´s and Norman´s understanding of the concept. Norman [START_REF] Norman | Affordance, Conventions, and Design[END_REF] is more interested in processing mechanisms and how the mind processes the information perceived. There are authors who argue for separating affordances from perception, as it was originally proposed by Gibson [START_REF] Kaptelinin | Affordances in HCI: toward a Mediated Action Perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Torenvliet | We can't afford it!: the Devaluation of a Usability Term[END_REF]. The claim is that there is an advantage of considering the existence of affordance independently of it being perceived by the actor or not. This separation of affordances from perception helps to differentiate between two aspects of design elements: its affordance and its usability [START_REF] Kaptelinin | Affordances in HCI: toward a Mediated Action Perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Torenvliet | We can't afford it!: the Devaluation of a Usability Term[END_REF]. For Norman, "affordances can be not only real but also just perceived" [11, p. 969] that is only affordance itself, without being perceived, plays a relatively minor role as designers should be more concerned with what users can perceive [START_REF] Norman | Affordance, Conventions, and Design[END_REF].

The contrast between the various theoretical positions and the different interpretations of the concept of affordance can be analysed by going back to the work of Gibson in its roots, namely the theory of ecological perception. As we reported in reference to the concept of affordance by Gibson, the ecological term is understood in the sense of adaptation of an animal to its environment, or in the relations between individuals of a species, the organized activities of this species and the environment of these activities. In this sense, the environment is not the "external world", but is intended as 'ecological niche', that is, the behaviour of a species living under specific environmental conditions. This definition of affordance establishes a mutual connection between the animal and the environment, and the indivisibility between perception and action. Gibson himself [START_REF] Gibson | The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems[END_REF] characterizes the perceptual system as a connection between the action and its perception. For the author, the perception is an emerging process of animalenvironment system. This implies that the perception does not reside in the brain, but is a process of extracting information from the environment, by means of exploration. In fact, if the primitive affordances linked to survival instincts are innate, all the others are the result of exploration of the environment through which the animal with its characteristics and capacity for action relates to an environment with specific characteristics. The information derived from this exploration is already meaningful information, since it is an element of the animal-environment system and is not compatible with the internalist interpretation proposed by cognitivism, according to which this information is a description of the environment that will be processed by the mind to give it a meaning.

Stoffregen [START_REF] Stoffregen | Breadth and limits of the affordance concept[END_REF] who provides a formal definition of affordances says that the emergent properties of the system are not present individually in the actors that are part of the system. For example, if we consider the climbability (affordance) of stairs, we should consider a system composed by a person (animal), the action of climbing (action) and the stairs (environment). The person and the stairs have individual properties (length of the leg, height of the step), but the system has a unique feature that is not present individually in any of the two actors, and is the scalability of the step, namely the relationship between the height of the step and the length of the person's leg.

The affordances therefore suggest possible behaviours that a system allows, but Stroffregen [START_REF] Stoffregen | Breadth and limits of the affordance concept[END_REF] states that it is the "psychological choice" of the actor that will bring the effective implementation of the action. In this choice, the emotions and the affective states can participate and produce a relationship with either a particular property of the environment to create an affordance or as part of a behaviour, by means of the consequences that an action produces in a person.

Affective Affordance

Extending the formalization of the concept of affordances proposed by Stroffregen [START_REF] Stoffregen | Affordances as Properties of the Animal-Environment System[END_REF], we can define an affective affordance by introducing an affective response of the user: Let Wpq (e.g., a user-interaction-artifact system) = (Xp, Zq) be composed of different things X (e.g., user) and Z (e.g., artifact).

Let p be a property of X and q be a property of Z.

The relation between p and q, p/q, defines a higher order property (i.e., a property of the user-artifact system), h.

Then h is said to be an affective affordance of Wpq if and only if: (i) Wpq = (Xp, Zq) possesses h (ii) Neither Z nor X possesses h (iii) h produces an affective response A(X).

The main difference between a general affordance and an affective affordance lies in the fact that a general affordance is directly linked to a behavior, while an affective affordance produces an emotional state that can or cannot precede the eventual psychological choice of implementing a behavior.

Considering the environment as ecological niche and the user as participant of a group, we can argue that affective responses are influenced by culture and society and depend on varied factors. As Boehner et al. [START_REF] Boehner | How Emotion is Made and Measured[END_REF] argue, the sense people make out of feelings and other affective states are intertwined with the way such emotional episodes are experienced and to the way they are translated into words. These processes happen both in the individual and collectively. While emotions come from inside an individual (as a result of either internal or external stimuli), it is in the collectivity that the meanings and translations into words (or gestures -especially in the case of sign languages or other cultural gestures, images, sounds, etc.) are formed and shared.

Affect, emotions and the words that attempt to define them have a social and cultural nature. Boehner et al. [START_REF] Boehner | How Emotion is Made and Measured[END_REF] give as an example the concept of "song", from the Ifaluk Atoll. "Song" could be directly translated to "anger". However, while in a Western context, "anger" has a rather negative connotation, the Ifalukan "song" is considered a justifiable anger, as it is provoked by someone's lack of responsibility or failure to properly respond to social norms.

Similarly, affective responses also have cultural background. The Sensual Evaluation Instrument (SEI) [START_REF] Isbister | The sensual evaluation instrument: developing an affective evaluation tool[END_REF], a self-assessment tool for affect, was created based on the premise that emotions can be explored from a non-verbal perspective as well as they can be evoked by different stimuli, like colors and shapes. The authors created and experimented objects with different shapes. In their experiments they observed that objects with sharp edges tended to be related to negative valence. On the other hand, objects with smooth surface and few protrusions were often associated to positive valence. The authors believe that SEI could be used across cultures and indeed one can easily recall personal experiences that validate those examples (that sharp edged objects are often related to negative affective responses; and smooth surfaces, to positive affective responses). While it is true and interesting for that selfassessment instrument, other objects with similar shapes can evoke opposite responses, which roots might be considered cultural or dependent on specific contexts. Fig. 1 illustrates this idea: it can be said that a baby hedgehog tends to have positive affective affordance, even though it has a prickly appearance. Other similar shaped objects would probably evoke not-touching. On the opposite way, maggots have soft looking surfaces but they tend to have negative affective affordance, usually evoking disgust or aversion. These responses are culturally learned. Babies inspire care; worms and larvae, disgust. Take other animals for examples. Guinea pigs are adorable pets in some countries. In other countries, they are a traditional dish, usually grilled as a whole. Cows are sacred in some cultures, tortured to death for meat in others. These contrasting ways to treat animals are socially accepted in their own cultures and cause people with different background to present different affective responses.

From an ecological perspective, this scenario becomes even more complex since user-system interactions are contaminated not only by socio-cultural elements but also by the individual's life experience. In the light of the formal definition of affective affordance in which Wpq=(Xp, Zq). It is arguable that the image Z (the artifact, in this case a baby hedgehog (cf. Fig. 1)) has some characteristics q (colors, size, lights, position, background, etc.). The user X has some characteristics p (physical characteristics, social values, beliefs, affective state, etc.). The system Wpq (userrelationship-image) affords an affective response A(X) which may or may not be expressed in behavior. This affective response is strongly linked to the system to all the meanings contained in it. For example, the image can afford a sentiment of sweetness in a young parent that can smile and eventually share the image in social media; or it can afford a feeling of disgust in a user who has just had a bad experience with a small rodent and, viewing the image, grimaces and shuts down the computer.

Affective responses are therefore the result of combinations of numerous elements in a complex system. To overcome the fragmentation of these responses and provide useful guidelines for interaction designers it is necessary to analyze, in a systemic way, the influences of the different actors in the formation of affective affordances.

Affective Affordance and the Design of Digital Artifacts

Affective responses could be analyzed within the Semiotic Onion and the flow of the Socially Aware Design. Take the example of Internet memes, i.e., media that are spread in the Internet, usually for fun. The "success kid" (Fig. 2a) is an example of Internet meme. It started as a common social action of taking pictures and a spontaneous affective expression that starts at the outmost layer of the semiotic onion: the informal layer. In order to reach a digital format and gain space online (technical layer), the picture was once treated and meanings were formalized with texts (formal layer). Going back the path towards the society, the online use of the Success kid meme gained a specific format (formal layers) as shown in Fig. 2b. As it became viral and worldwide known (informal layer), it even became theme for advertisement, in a billboard add. Also the White House in the United Stated used the meme, in a Tweet in their campaign to urge Congress to pass the immigration reform (Fig. 2c) representing the impact in society.

While it is hard to determine whether a product will be successfully accepted by users, one can investigate elements that can be of influence in the process. Tang et al [START_REF] Tang | Perceived affordances of web advertisements: Implications for information artifacts design[END_REF] have shown the relevance of consumers' perceived affordances (namely physical, cognitive, affective and control affordances) in the success of some specific ads in China. We argue that affective affordances have the potential to influence the design of ICT in general. The design for Affectability [START_REF] Hayashi | Affectability' and Design Workshops: taking actions towards more sensible design[END_REF] is the design that is concerned with affective affordances throughout the entire design process. We had presented the concept of Affectibility and the Framework for Affectibility based on the same theoretical roots explained in Section 2. Next we present the creation and development of an application, which illustrates the design towards improved Affectibility -that is, the design that is concerned with the possible affective affordances that could be collectively constructed and perceived by users.

Designing AmigoDaHora

We had been immersed in an underprivileged community of a public school in Brazil, taking active part in the school's daily activities as participant observers. From this endeavor we identified many characteristics of that group of children; one of them was the very noticeable tendency to negative thoughts and behavior. Not only children but also teachers and other employees from the school were often prone to see defects and points of complaint in almost any subject. Seeing positive aspects was difficult for them. Following the flow of the Socially Aware Design [START_REF] Baranauskas | Social Awareness in HCI[END_REF], this predominance of rather negative affective affordances in schools interactions can be seen as a characteristic from the school as a group (society). From this need (of practicing more positive views and attitudes) we proposed the creation of an application based on a social activity (informal layer) known as "Secret Santa" ("Amigo secreto" or "Amigo oculto" in Brazil). In this practice, each participant raffles the name of another and he/she has to buy the other a present. In our proposed Children played the role of our design partners in the development of the application. In participatory practices they helped us to better understand and formalize the rules of this new activity of gifting compliments (formal layer). By enacting the activity we tried to understand what elements the interface should represent as to provide the necessary characteristics to help achieve the desired affective responses. Children informed us not only about what they needed the application to have in order to create the gifts as they wanted, but they also named the application: AmigoDaHora -slang meaning something similar to "cool friend" (cf. Fig. 3a).

The technical layer is the application itself. We developed a mobile application that made use of RFID cards for tangible interaction. Only one mobile was needed and it was based on Android platform. Each child would have their own card. We asked children to personalize the cards by hand drawing something to represent them on the card. The application would read the card and identify each child as participant of AmigoDaHora. After registering all participants for a round (cf. Fig. 3b), the application would secretly assign the participants to each other. Each child would then take turns to privately interact with the application in order to find out who his/her friend was and create a gift/compliment for that friend (cf. Fig. 3c). The application let children speak the compliment out loud and it transcribed what they said. Children could also take pictures and/or make drawings as to compose the gift/compliment. After all children had created their gifts, they could take turns again to use the application and receive their gifts/compliments.

Going back from the technical layer (the development and evaluation of AmigoDaHora application) to society, we observed the use made of the application. Right on the first round playing with AmigoDaHora, children organized themselves and set rules to determine how they would take turns to interact with the application (formal layer). Sharing the single mobile device and making use of the application in the group (informal layer) should potentially direct children to the desired outcome of practicing seeing positive aspects in others and develop positive attitudes (impact back on society).

The factors (e.g., aesthetical, motivational, etc.) that might contribute to the establishment of positive affective affordances were listed in the form of design principles for Affectability (PAff), which were followed in the creation of AmigoDaHora. Among the six principles presented [START_REF] Hayashi | Affectability' and Design Workshops: taking actions towards more sensible design[END_REF], for example, the PAff 1, Free interpretation and communication of affect, suggests to i) make available features to allow communication and expression; ii) avoid predetermining meanings (of signs, words, images, etc.) and let affect be freely expressed and interpreted; and iii) avoid automatic identification of affect. One affective affordance of the AmigoDaHora mobile application (A(X)) could be: affective expression by drawing smile faces with the finger. This possibility exists from Xp1 = children fingers, Zq1 = touch screen, and p1 /q1 = children application on a mobile device for the creation and exchange of compliments.

Conclusion

Digital artifacts have to make sense to users. The Socially Aware Design argues for design processes that start in the society, with the understanding of the main stakeholders and the comprehension of the target users' main abilities and needs. In OS it is by understanding the informal practices of a social group that practices can be translated into the designed artifact.

Being affective responses a result of cultural and social interactions, in order to aim for improved Affectibility in the resulting solutions, designers could start their analysis from the society as well, following the path of the design throughout the Semiotic Onion. This approach can not only contribute to the creation of more meaningful systems, but also help designers having in mind the possible affective outcomes that the designed system might have when it, in its turn, influence back social practices. This article discussed the concept of Affective affordances, presenting a definition from an ecological perspective in which the environment and users are mutually connected, although perception and action are not always necessarily directly linked. Future work could explore the norms that help inform the design for improved Affectibility.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. From left to right: (a) original picture taken by the child's mother; (b) internet meme example; (c) meme used by the USA White House in a Tweet [Sources: (a) and (b) http://globalnews.ca/news/1939419/success-kid-needs-yourhelp-getting-his-dad-a-new-kidney/; (c) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/success-kid-meme-passimmigration-reform-article-1.1376952, Accessed: April 2016]

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. (a) Main screen of AmigoDaHora (b) enrolling a child in the game (c) child drawing a smile face to illustrate his gift/compliment

Acknowledgments. We would like to thank our colleagues from InterHAD for insightful discussions; CAPES and CNPq (Process # 308618/2014-9) for financial support.


Alysson Bolognesi Prado
email: aprado@ic.unicamp.br

Maria Cecilia
email: cecilia@ic.unicamp.br

Calani Baranauskas

Using Stakeholder and Pragmatic Analyses to Clarify the Scenario of Data Sharing in Scientific Software

Keywords: Scientific communities, Actor-Network Theory, Norm analysis, Stakeholder analysis, Data sharing, Collaborative systems

Scientific communities can be seen as highly focused organizations, composed of people performing strict patterns of behavior. The growing body of scientific data available digitally, as well as new infrastructure of distributed access, has given to funding agencies, politicians and scientists in general the foresight of novel possibilities of discovery and innovation reusing those data. Many stakeholders now expect the data to be released, although relevant sharing rates are not always verified. In this paper, we propose a method to bring forward and represent these interests. Applying this method, we investigated how the availability of software capable of data storage and sharing can act upon their users, and whether it makes them more suitable to share research byproducts. Results show that, although current software empowers the scientists to carry out their own research, it still does not create a path through which users can make their interests spread among other stakeholders.

Introduction

Over the last two decades, scientists have increasingly relying on computers to store and manage research data. This trend has given rise to a whole field of knowledge called e-science [START_REF] Deroure | Research Agenda for the Semantic Grid: a Future e-Science Infrastructure[END_REF]. Several software have been developed in order to support researcher activities, for instance, Seek [START_REF] Wolstencroft | The SEEK: A Platform for Sharing Data and Models in Systems Biology[END_REF], openBIS [START_REF] Bauch | openBIS: a Flexible Framework for Managing and Analyzing Complex Data in Biology Research[END_REF] and PEDRo [START_REF] Garwood | PEDRo: a Database for Storing, Searching and Disseminating Experimental Proteomics Data[END_REF]. As a consequence of this higher availability of digitally stored data, some began to advocate the possibilities of other scientists to reuse these data [START_REF] Carlson | What Are Data? The Many Kinds of Data and their Implications for Reuse[END_REF]. However, data sharing did not reach the expected rates [START_REF] Appelbe | eResearch -Paradigm Shift or Propaganda[END_REF][START_REF] Borgman | The Conundrum of Sharing Research Data[END_REF]. Faniel and Zimmerman [START_REF] Faniel | Beyond the Data Deluge: a Research Agenda for Large-Scale Data Sharing and Reuse[END_REF] have raised some questions to be answered in order to achieve data sharing and reuse in a larger scale. For instance, "What other types of social interaction beyond that with the data producer can facilitate data reuse (e.g., colleagues, third party experts)? How can social exchange and documentation be combined to support data sharing and reuse on a large scale?" [9, p. 61] Scientific communities can be seen as highly focused organizations [START_REF] Wenger | Communities of practice and social learning systems[END_REF] performing tasks strictly conformed to their accepted methods. Therefore, we argue that the tools provided by Organizational Semiotics [START_REF] Liu | Semiotics of Information Systems Engineering[END_REF] are suited to capture the systemic features of scientific work, in particular, the ones related to intentions, interests and behavior, that is, the pragmatic level. Associated to a stakeholder analysis, it could also be used for understanding the cultural reverberations, either beneficial or disadvantageous, of an innovation among the involved parties [START_REF] Rambo | An Organisational Semiotics Approach to Multicultural Requirements Engineering: Stakeholder's Analysis of Online Shopping for Saudi Arabian Female Consumers[END_REF].

In this paper, we outline and apply a method to capture the social and pragmatic aspects of the interaction of scientists with one another as well as with technological artifacts, and the interests involved with data sharing. Given the important social facet involved in use and reuse of scientific data, we draw upon the sociological framework provided by Actor-Network Theory [START_REF] Latour | Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society[END_REF][START_REF] Latour | Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory[END_REF] in order to improve the understanding of how non-human entities, such as software and data but not limited to them, participate in the processes performed by scientists.

This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 brings a summary of other studies contributing to the theoretical and methodological support of our analysis, while Section 3 shows the sources of information that fed it. In Section 4 we propose a method to capture how the interested entities articulate in a social scenario involving people and technology in order to achieve mutual benefit, and apply it in Section 5 to existing software. In Section 6 we discuss the findings and add our final remarks in Section 7.

Theoretical-Methodological Background

The Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is a theoretical as well as methodological framework that emerged from Social Studies of Science and Technology. It proposes to see social phenomena as chains of associations distributed in time and space, dependent of the continuous agency of their participants on each other [START_REF] Latour | Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory[END_REF]. Its origins on empirical studies of scientists performing their daily activities make it very suitable to help understanding social aspects of science making. An actor is defined as any entity, whether human or not, capable of changing a certain state of affairs Human actors encompass people involved and interested in a certain state of affairs, along with their embodied knowledge and knowhow. ANT claims that purely human relations are short ranged and fast decaying. Non-human actors, although not provided of intentionality, have the potential of mediation and interaction, either by physical or cognitive means. Participants of social activities create associations among themselves, with the intention to get support, propagate forces and interests as well as mobilize other partners to achieve their goals.

An actor is an intermediary in a chain of associations when propagate the actions received without change. The behavior of an intermediary is predictable and the outputs are determined by the inputs. On the other hand, an actor is a mediator when it modifies, distorts, amplifies or translates incoming stimuli, being creative and showing variability and unpredictability to act on others. During a scenario analysis, intermediaries often fade out whereas mediators stand out as solvers of asymmetries and conflicts between other actors.

From the ANT perspective, normative behavior can be seen as the sum of social forces generated, stored and replied by actors and conducted through the associations between them. One actor acts upon the others affording some behavior, trying to mold it to his own interests and benefit. The more these forces are stable, the more community's behavior seems homogeneous [START_REF] Law | Actor-Network Theory and Material Semiotics[END_REF]. Knowing the source and path of these influences, as well as the reservoirs of the rules, examples, laws and models [START_REF] Latour | Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory[END_REF], is fundamental when someone is interested in understanding or changing them.

Prado and Baranauskas [START_REF] Prado | Perspectives on Using Actor-Network Theory and Organizational Semiotics to Address Organizational Evolution[END_REF][START_REF] Prado | Capturing Semiotic and Social Factors of Organizational Evolution[END_REF] proposed a method for representing the social forces involved in a social phenomenon, introducing the idea of intended norms, that is, desired or expected patterns of behavior. These norms can be scored using the following proposed syntax, where each one receives an identification (ID) and the source of the norm, that is, the actor who is acting upon the other, shaping its behavior, is identified: Norm <norm-id>: whenever <condition> if <state> then <target-actor> is <obliged | permitted | prohibited> by <source-actor> to do <action>. These IDs can be applied in a graphical representation of the actors and their relationships, labeling arrows that show the path of mediators and intermediaries they travel.

3

The Conundrum of Sharing Research Data Borgman [3] studies in depth the intricate subject of data sharing among scientists, producing a clarifying discussion about the involved interests, benefits and the difficulties to overcome. For her, sharing covers a variety of acts as varied as announcing the existence of data, posting them on a website, or contributing them to a richly curated repository.

There are four main rationales driving the requests for sharing research data: reproducibility of experiments, publicity of the outcomes of public funded research, reuse of data for asking new questions, and innovate the way science is made. The reproducibility is desired, for instance, by the peer reviewers of publications, who can make better judgments of the submitted papers. Other scientists are also interested in reproducibility, since they can validate the references on which they are basing their own research. Publications add value to data and vice-versa [START_REF] Pepe | From Artifacts to Aggregations: Modeling Scientific Life Cycles on the Semantic Web[END_REF].

Public funded research is a target of legislators, representing the taxpayers, who wants to make available all research data produced using governmental grants, as a direct return to the society of the invested amounts. Researchers are also willing to have access to third-party data to ask new questions over the existing datasets, particularly when those are expensive or difficult to obtain. The reuse of data raises the question of assessing the veracity and integrity of a given dataset, and the need for documentation [START_REF] Faniel | Reusing Scientific Data: How Earthquake Engineering Researchers Assess the Reusability of Colleagues' Data[END_REF][START_REF] Carlson | What Are Data? The Many Kinds of Data and their Implications for Reuse[END_REF]. At last, it has been argued about the existence of a scientific "fourth paradigm", a new way of doing science where algorithms for data crunching and mining are applied to massive datasets to produce scientific knowledge, therefore being highly dependent of availability of data.

However, there are also reasons for limiting data sharing. For instance, researches involving human subjects must be concerned with privacy issues and not all data could be disclosed. Scientists may also be unwilling to provide their data to other researchers, particularly when they are not related to the same project or institution. That happens because researchers compete for grants, jobs, publication venues, as well as for students, and access to data is a competitive advantage in this scenario. In private funded research projects, a lower rate data sharing could be observed.

Studying how scientists interact with one another, with technology and with nature during the production of a scientific fact, Latour [START_REF] Latour | Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society[END_REF] proposes to understand this process as a progressive effort to strengthen claims by means of mobilizing other entities. These may be other person, but mostly are non-human of semiotic or material nature, which provide support to the arguments, allowing certain statements to be held against inquiries.

One of the main allies a scientist can resort is the previously published scientific literature, because claims are harder to be refuted when adequately associated to citations widely accepted. The same rationale can be applied to inscriptions and other visual records produced by laboratory instruments or derived from their data, which can go along with texts to permit their authors to sustain their point of view about a subject. The validity of these arrangements, however, cannot be measured by its intrinsic characteristics. Once approved by the scrutiny of other scientists, the hypothesis can be gradually strengthened as a scientific fact as it is used by others, who become interested in its correctness.

A Method to Trace Interests of Stakeholders

Understanding that the behavior of users towards a piece of software can be affected by the resultant of the forces propagating on the network of associations that surround and reach them, we need to clarify the intricate set of influences each actor exerts and receives in this scenario. To perform this task, we envisioned a method that identifies the involved parties and represents their relationships and interactions, as well as the patterns of behavior they expect or desire from the others. The Stakeholder Diagram [START_REF] Kolkman | Problem Articulation Methodology[END_REF] is widely used in problem articulation, serving as a good starting point to clarify the scenario under study. It provides visual representation of the roles of the participants, also showing how closely related they are to the system under study. Pouloudi et al. [START_REF] Pouloudi | How Stakeholder Analysis can be Mobilized with Actor-Network Theory to Identify Actors[END_REF] suggest the conjoint use of stakeholder analysis and ANT as a generic, context free, guidance to identify the involved humans, as well as other relevant non-human actors.

We adopted this method to elicit the participation of actors of both nature, and employed the concepts described in Section 2 to capture the interest each actor has in the behavior of the others. In our proposal, human actors will be drawn as round rectangles, while the non-human as the ones with straight corners. They are bound by lines whenever they have some kind of interaction or association. Norm statements, representing a behavior not necessarily observed but sometimes desired or intended, are attached to arrows depicting the path from the source actor to the target, that is, from the one who will benefit from the pattern of action to the actor who should perform it accordingly.

Whenever a non-human actor is software, we must inspect its user interface in order to capture some affordances for the users. As intended norms, these can be traced back to discover, or at least hypothesize, their sources. For example, consider a system that requires the user to select the project a given dataset belongs to, being otherwise denied to upload files. It may indicate a need or intent of the institution, which provides the software to its scientists, to keep data files properly categorized. This can be captured as the following norm and diagram elements shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 1. Software and its developers acting as intermediaries, propagating the interests of the institution and molding the repertoire of actions of the users: they are obligated to identify the project a new dataset belongs. Arrows show the path of the influences and actions needed to promote such affordance

In another example, consider the interests the general public have as taxpayers and as people being studied by scientists. They are stakeholders with distinct expectations about how the researchers should behave, expressing themselves through their representatives by means of legislation. The interest of the taxpayers is exerted by means of the taxes which willingness to be paid by the citizen can influence the legislators. On the other hand, the human subjects can only rely on their contacts to legislator and personal pressure. We must notice that the taxes are acting as a nonhuman actoran intermediary forwarding the intended norm. In their turn, the legislators shall act as a mediator, finding a half term solution, for instance, creating legislation regulating the concession of grants. This can be recorded in the following set of norms plus the diagram sketched in Fig. 2.

Norm "funding": whenever funding research if with public taxes then the scientists are obliged by taxpayers to share their research products. Norm "privacy": whenever publishing data if it involves human subjects then the scientists are prohibited by human subjects to disclosure sensitive information. Norm "public/ethic": whenever funding researches if from public taxes and no sensitive data involved then the scientists are obliged by regulation law to make available their research products. of generic type, such as publications and presentations. The user is always obliged to associate these items to one of the projects she is affiliated -as the "identify project" norm defined previously. SEEK allows users to standardize and organize their digital assets, as well as to define access permissions for each one, ensuring the scientists have the final word about who can access those files. When defining these access rules, developers provide a default value that allows anyone to know the existence of the file, but not its content. All uploaded items have a persistent URL that allows data citation, as well as a reference to its authors, rewarding the contributions of each individual. Put in norm syntax, this means:

Norm "control": whenever data is uploaded then scientists are allowed by developers to choose access rules. Norm "default": whenever data is uploaded if user does not control permissions then other projects' members, anonymous visitors are allowed by developers to view data summary. Norm "request": whenever viewing data summary then other scientists are allowed by developers to request full access to file owner. Norm "cite": whenever writing a paper if used data files then scientists are allowed by developers to add a link referencing data. Norm "access": whenever data is stored on SEEK if paper cites data then other scientists, peer reviewers are allowed by scientists to view, use or download the file.

To describe the broader context in which the software operates, we used the previous studies summarized in Section 3, as well as the complete reports of Latour [START_REF] Latour | Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society[END_REF] and Borgman [START_REF] Borgman | The Conundrum of Sharing Research Data[END_REF]. In addition to the actual examples presented in Section 4, we scored some other following intended norms, representatives of the main involved interests. The main goal of scientists is to produce scientific content, mainly in the form of publications, which are expected to be accepted and cited. All these interests are placed on the stakeholder diagram, and the result is shown in Fig. 3.

Norm "funding policies": whenever receiving grants then scientists, institutions are obliged by funding agencies to produce scientific knowledge, mainly in the form of publications, following public/ethic laws. Norm "copyright": whenever sharing resource products then scientists are prohibited by publishers to disclosure copyrighted material. Norm "quality": whenever publishing papers then publishers are obliged by other scientists to evaluate quality and veracity of its contents. Norm "review": whenever submitting paper for publishing then scientists are obliged by peer reviewers to provide related data. Norm "reuse": whenever possessing data difficult to be obtained then scientists are obliged by other scientists to publish data. Norm "advantage": whenever possessing data difficult to be obtained if they are kept private then scientists are allowed by those data to publish new relevant papers. Norm "spokesperson": whenever writing a paper then scientists are allowed by data, instruments, SEEK, other software to make claims and statements. Norm "acceptance": whenever writing a paper then other scientists, peer reviewers are obliged by scientists to accept their claims and statements based on data, instruments, references.

Analyzing the Outcomes

The ANT rationale of the proposed method demands an inquisitive stance from the analyst of a given scenario, requiring the identification of in-between actors and finding or guessing how they receive and propagate interests. The search for a path for the influences, represented graphically by the arrows on the diagram, leads to a more complete set of involved entities and points out possible gaps. For instance, no path was defined for the norm "reuse", unless exists a missing link between the scientists and any -or several -other actor to promote some sort of influence. Other issues are brought forth by the arrangement provided by the stakeholder diagram; for instance, the funding agencies and the publishers are the main "bridges" to the more external social world, while the inner layers remain self-regulative. As a drawback, to guess the source of an interest can be a tricky task; for instance, "default" is attributed to the developers, only because they are the most probable responsible for that choice. Deontic operators also need to receive more attention, since the restrictions of "obliged" and "prohibited" have a different actuation than the possibilities given by "allowed". Regarding the particular scenario in which the method was applied, the analysis reveals that software developers may play a major role as mediators. Despite of being often kept aside of the stakeholders list, their engagement to the subject in this case is not neutral. They capture the funding agencies' intentions issued as funding policies, the institutions' management requirements, the scientists' needs of using data, and finally their own interests of making some software capable of promoting data sharing; the resultant of mediation being expressed through the software affordances. Empirical validation of this finding will require further research, in situations with conflict of interests that are neither self-regulated prior to software development, nor solved during the analysis phase -for instance, using participatory design workshops.

Analysis also show that "other software" is an alternate path to provide to scientists certain possibilities of action -despite of these systems to have no social features, but instead good data visualization or manipulation -and therefore "SEEK" does not poses itself as an obligatory passage point [START_REF] Latour | Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory[END_REF] of interests. This raises as an interesting research question of how to better design these software, which should be addressed by research proposals such as the Human-Data Interaction informed by Organizational Semiotics [START_REF] Hornung | Challenges for Human-Data Interaction -a Semiotic Perspective[END_REF]. Software has the capability of embed complex rules, also being able to act as mediator. Particularly in a social scenario where it can receive clues about the heterogeneous set of interests of the persons operating him [START_REF] Jensen | An Interaction Design Method to Support the Expression of User Intentions in Collaborative Systems[END_REF]. For instance, "request" captures the interest of other scientists in datasets and mediates users, institutions, developers and other scientists' interests without exposing any file details.

There are other studies of the factors affecting data sharing and reuse among scientific communities, such as surveys based on questionnaires applied to scientists of different fields of knowledge such as health sciences [START_REF] Kim | Institutional, Motivational and Resource Factors Influencing Health Scientists' Data-sharing Behaviours[END_REF], STEM -science, technology, engineering and mathematics [START_REF] Kim | Institutional and Individual Influences on Scientists' Data Sharing Behaviors: a Multilevel Analysis[END_REF], or social sciences [START_REF] Curty | Beyond Data Thrifting: An Investigation of Factors Influencing Research Data Reuse In Social Sciences[END_REF]. They conclude that journal publishers have a statistically significant influence on such behavior, while normative pressure by other scientists and regulative pressure by funding agencies are not perceived. Our proposal complements these measures of perception by showing paths pressures travel, and pointing out possible inconsistencies. For instance, the value given to a published paper is coherent to the strength of the norms it mediates. On the other hand, the low perception of pressure by funding agencies is not compatible to previous studies and discussions [START_REF] Borgman | The Conundrum of Sharing Research Data[END_REF][START_REF] Latour | Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society[END_REF], requiring a deep checking of the actual actuation of grants onto researchers. As stated by Eze et al. [START_REF] Eze | Factors Affecting Emerging ICT Adoption in SMEs: an Actor-Network Theory Analysis[END_REF], the adoption of technology is not a one-off action that can be precisely captured by quantitative methods such as questionnaires; therefore a qualitative approach as provided by ANT also contribute to a broader analysis and comprehension of the phenomena.

Conclusion

The effectiveness of software when different interests -sometimes conflicting -are involved is not only a matter of its technical features but also a social [START_REF] Pereira | A Framework-Informed Discussion on Social Software: Why Some Social Software Fail and Others Do Not?[END_REF] and pragmatic challenge. Scientific software intended for data sharing are not an exception, and despite of their capacity to store huge amounts of data, its publishing and reuse rates could be improved. By asking who is potentially benefited from a certain behavior imposed or allowed by software, and the path this influence takes, responsible agents can be pointed out. Many of the patterns promoted by the system targets the users, while other external stakeholders seem barely influenced. As software is the direct point of contact of the scientists to data, its potential as mediator to resolve asymmetries and conflicts between converging interests could be better explored. Further research includes adding existing generic scientific social software such as Mendeley or ReserchGate to the diagram, to enrich the analysis with other possible social interactions between scientists mediated by technology.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig.2. legislators acting as mediators of conflicting interests, since "funding" and "privacy" are balanced and issued as another distinct desired pattern of behavior

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Expanded stakeholder diagram eliciting the role of actors as the path of interests in certain patterns of behavior

Norm "identify project": whenever uploading a file then the scientists are obliged by the institution they work for to relate it to a previously registered project.

Acknowledgments. We thank the Brazilian Research Foundation CNPq (Grant # 308618/2014-9). The opinions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect those of the funding agencies.


Manuel J Ibarra

Cristhian Serrano

Juan C Muñoz

SIERA: Improving Data Visualization for Learning Assessment in Educational Organisations

Keywords: learning assessment, educational organisations, data visualization, Excel VBA

Encouraging a culture of evaluating students' knowledge, makes it possible to promptly discover weaknesses in the teaching and learning process. Once weaknesses have been identified then teachers can apply methodological strategies to reverse this situation and improve the student learning process. This paper describes a proposed strategy that supports the evaluation process. We propose to use an Excel file in which the evaluator fills in the answers provided by the student, then the system processes the data to rate the assessment for each student and generates statistical reports. The data is exported to a CSV file and then uploaded into a database server using the HTTP protocol. To validate this proposal we used focus group and daily meetings with teachers and students in evaluation process in Apurimac-Peru. The results highlight that using the tool makes it possible to have information everywhere and every time.

Introduction

To meet the first commitment, one of the Eight Commitments School Management given by the government [1], the school (IE: Institución Educativa in Spanish) organize and propose periodically assessments for students; it means, they implement an evaluation culture for students and propose corrective measures for poor academic performance in the evaluated areas. According to Gonzales et al. [START_REF] González | Cultura de evaluación en instituciones educativas[END_REF], an evaluation culture could be defined as the set of values, agreements, traditions, beliefs and thoughts that an educational community attaches to the action of evaluation. Bolseguí and Fuguet [START_REF] Bolseguí | Cultura de evaluación: una aproximación conceptual[END_REF], point out that the evaluation culture is an evolving concept that refers to the need to evaluate on an ongoing basis; for them, the assessment is a complex and multidimensional process that includes different components: vision, values, behaviours, routines, organizational and social context, past and present experiences, epistemological, theoretical and methodological. Organisational complexity is very high because the evaluation processes and functions require multi-systems collaborations, and has a high reliance on effective information communication among DRE (from spanish Dirección Regional de Educación), UGEL(from spanish Unidad de Gestión Educativa), IE, Director, Teachers and therefore faces many challenges regarding pragmatic interoperability such as information collision, policy obstacles, and procedure mismanagement.

Once evaluated, it is necessary to analyze and interpret the results, for which it is important that the data is properly displayed; this topic has been widely discussed by the authors in the area of data visualization [START_REF] Guchev | Design guidelines for correlated quantitative data visualizations[END_REF][START_REF] Keim | Mastering the Information Age: Solving Problems with Visual Analytics[END_REF]. Most frequently, a key feature of such an approach is showing relationships between different data groups of a provided statistical selection: in order to compare relative proportions between various indicators [START_REF] Spence | Information Visualization: Design for Interaction[END_REF][START_REF] Wilkinson | The Grammar of Graphics[END_REF].

This article presents a strategy to qualify student test primary and secondary level in Math and Communication areas in Educational Institutions of Apurimac-Peru, showing the obtained results by statistical charts sharing achievement levels for each student, this information is useful to teachers who can use improvement strategies for underperforming students. In addition, the tool also allows you to display statistical graphs of the results by district, by level, by grade, by area; so that the Directors of DRE, UGEL and IE can make decisions to improve student learning.

Section II of this article presents and discusses the work related to the subject of semiotics of educational organizations and data visualization; section III explains the design and implementation of the proposed strategy; section IV explains the evaluation methodology used to validate the proposed strategy; finally, section V describes the conclusions and future work of this research.

Related Works

Semiotics is the study of meaning of sign processes and meaningful communication. This includes the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Within the organisational semiotics literature, three forms of activities are discussed, namely substantive, communication and control [START_REF] Liu | Semiotics in information systems engineering[END_REF]. While much attention has been paid to substantive norms in business process modelling [START_REF] Effah | Virtual Process Modelling Informed by Organisational Semiotics: A Case of Higher Education Admission[END_REF], relatively less research has focused on control norms, especially in virtual environments. Process controls are embedded constraints that serve as conditions for performing related activities [START_REF] Brambilla | Process modeling in Web applications[END_REF].

Effah [START_REF] Effah | Virtual Process Modelling Informed by Organisational Semiotics: A Case of Higher Education Admission[END_REF] publishes an article titled "Virtual Process Control Modelling in Organisational Semiotics: A Case of Higher Education Admission", this study explores Web-based virtual process control modelling based on organisational semiotics, Web modelling language (WebML), and higher education admission process. The study contributes to organisational semiotics research, which has so far focused more on substantive norm and less on control norm modelling.

On the other hand, Data Visualization is a general term that describes any effort to help people understand the significance of data by placing it in a visual context. Patterns, trends and correlations that might go undetected in text-based data can be exposed and recognized easier with data visualization software. There are techniques for facilitating data selection in the data transformation process [START_REF] Ahlberg | Visual information seeking: Tight coupling of dynamic query filters with starfield displays[END_REF][START_REF] Derthick | Efficient multi-object dynamic query histograms[END_REF], techniques for selecting chart type and visual components (e.g., line style, point face, axis range) automatically in the visual mapping process [START_REF] Mackinlay | Automating the design of graphical presentations of relational information[END_REF][START_REF] Fasciano | Postgraphe: a system for the generation of statistical graphics and text[END_REF]; and techniques for changing visual effects to clarify the user's viewpoint and assertion easily [START_REF] Mittal | Visual prompts and graphical design: A framework for exploring the design space of 2-D charts and graphs[END_REF] in the view transformation process.

Matsushita et al. [START_REF] Matsushita | Interactive visualization method for exploratory data analysis. Information Visualisation[END_REF] make a research titled "Interactive Visualization Method for Exploratory Data Analysis". They propose an interactive visualization method suitable for exploratory data analysis. The method extracts parameters for drawing from a series of user requirements written in a natural language and redraws the drawn chart interactively according to the change in the user's viewpoint. In this type of data analysis, statistical charts are employed to help the user understand the target data, and displayed chart is redrawn interactively according to the user's input inspired by looking at the chart.

Design and Implementation

For this work we used the sign-based Semiotic Communication and the System Oriented Approach of Semiotic Organisation which includes Sign System Oriented Approach. Sign System Oriented Approach studies media (spoken language, texts, instruments, computer interfaces) as sign systems, and see the use of these media by people as based on systems of narration and interpretation. User interaction with media (texts, computer interfaces, instruments) is observed, as well as communication between people at work. We also used a Visual Communication approach to represent the obtained results, which has various types of codes that help determine the message. The argument can be made that visual communication operates similar to a language sign system.

Educational Business Process Management for Assessment

The process starts when DRE proposes a schedule for evaluations, then Specialists develop indicators and questions for the test. Then each UGEL's Director, print the tests and distributes to each IE. Then The Director of each IE, assign evaluators (students) for each grade and section. The evaluation day, students take the exam, then teachers fill answers in Excel sheet to qualify each test using Excel Macro (just clicking a button). Then, Director and teachers of IE can see the graphical results generated by the system. Then, Excel file is very heavy in size (about 10 Mb), so we convert the data to a lightweight format file ".CSV" (about 5k), so that file is easier to transfer by Internet. Finally, the System processes updated data and generate new reports for users. The process is shown in Fig. 1. Every question can be market with "A", "B", "C", "X" (when students mark two or more answers) or " " (blank, when a student did not mark any answer). Mathematics and Communication have 23 questions, every section has from one to forty five students approximately, and in the primary level there are six grades named "First", "Second", "Third", "Forth", "Fifth" and "Sixth"; and in the secondary level there are five grades named "First", "Second", "Third", "Forth", "Fifth". Designing Reports. After the teacher fill out the answers, the system use functions in Excel Macro to rate the assessment using values assigned in Table 1. An example of the Report is shown in Fig. 3. Assigning Reached Level. Each test has 23 questions for each area. To determine the level a student has reached, specialists produce distribution of scores, as shown in Table1. For example, if a student gets a score of 5, then, the level acquired is "Initiation"; if a student gets a score of 12, then, the level acquired is "In Process"; and if a student gets a score of 20, then, the level acquired is "Achieved".

Evaluation of the Proposed Strategy

The validation of the tool was conducted with Education Specialist (workers) of the DRE-Apurímac through a focus group. The two events took place on: May 15 and September 14, 2015; in a meeting room of the Pedagogical Management Area of DRE. The participants were five specialists in evaluation. All participants had significant years of experience in monitoring and supervising educational schools. Before starting the activity, the developed system was briefly shown to each specialist in evaluation. A simulation of the software functionality was then done. An operator, using the SIERA system, entered the "modular code" of the IE, then, the System generates the list of students of each grade and sections. The specialist fill out the answers for each student and then the system show the results graphically, then, he exports the result to CSV file and finally sends the result to the datacentre. After this simulated process, the Education Specialists provided feedback, suggestions and opinions, and agreed that the system can definitely help improve decision making and perception (awareness) of the assessment results. When asked: "will the use of the designed software help you to make it easier the data visualization of evaluation assessment results?", they all answered that in their opinion that assumption was valid. Then they were asked: "would the decision-making speed and quality of decisions have been better if the Director would have had a support tool that is visual and provides the appropriate suggestions?", they all replied that a positive answer would be valid.

There were two evaluations until August 31 2015 using SIERA system; 614 schools and 38338 students were evaluated in the first assessment; 961 schools and 68075 students in the second assessment.

Conclusion and Future Work

Education Specialists agreed that having this type of information in the SIERA system would help to know the levels reached (Beginning, In Process, and Achieved) by students in every area, level, grade and district; also, Director could have accurate information when making decisions based on the learning achievement indicators. The time required to have results of the assessment is reduced significantly and the information is available at every time and everywhere whenever Internet connection is available. Likewise the participant Specialists agreed that, a priori, they can expect a significant improvement in the process of student learning and the quality of decisions, because Directors would have accurate information when making decisions.

For the future work, we need to define some key performance indicator to measure the improvement speed and then compare current way of working with the improved way of working. We hope to continue the experimentation process of using the other Departments to improve the application.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Business Process Management for assessment application

Fig. 2 . 3 .

 23 Fig. 2. Sheet to fill answers Fig. 3. Report using Semaphore Indicators

Table 1 .

 1 Distribution of reached level according to punctuation and colour assigned

	10.49%
	18.88%	Initiation In Proccess
		Achieved
	70.63%

Acknowledgments. Thanks to the Education Specialists of Pedagogical Management Area of the Regional Education Apurimac in Peru, especially Edith Montalvo, Alexander Serrano, Dámaso A. Sanchez and José O. Arohuillca.


Martin Wheatman
email: martin@wheatman.net

A Pragmatic Approach to Disambiguation in Text Understanding

Keywords: Machine understanding, Disambiguation, Pragmatism, Semiotics

This paper describes a novel disambiguation mechanism for a text understanding system, which utilizes a general correction function, also described. This mechanism is comprised of: contextual ordering; transactional persistent memory; and, interactivity aligning machine action with user intent. The latter clearly demonstrates the use of language at a Pragmatic leveldirectedness toward user intent is afforded, purely through a speech interface. This work is supported by a Java implementation enguage and the iNeed app.

Introduction

Being able to speak naturally to computers would be of great benefit for all, including many hitherto disenfranchised groups, other than, perhaps, the functionally mute or profoundly deaf. Speech-to-text services provided by mobile operating systems can disambiguate with surprising accuracy [START_REF] Huang | A Historical Perspective of Speech Recognition Communications of the[END_REF]. However, understanding the resultant text remains problematic, which is exacerbated by the many forms of ambiguity in natural language [2]. Simple command based systems, such as Amazon Fire OS's Alexa [3], can successfully apply an operation to an entity, by support fixed phrases such as "ask...to...". However, such slot-filling does not uncover intended meaning in text.

Structural analysis -syntax and semantics -is not sufficient to provide insight into the intention of the speaker [START_REF] Austin | How To Do Things With Words[END_REF]. Two sentences with valid, identical structures may have entirely different meanings: the Jumbo has landed is an everyday occurrence; whereas, the Eagle has landed is one of the most iconic phrases of the C20 th . Linguistic studies, such as modelling concordance with corpora analysis software [START_REF] Anthony | AntConc Software[END_REF], defer any issues with intended meaning to the researcher. Indeed, text understanding software must be able to differentiate between identical sentences. Further, deducing intentional thrust should also be addressed: while I have a coffee is the negation of I need a coffee, I have to go to town has the same meaning as I need to go to town.

Human speech, however, is not unduly plagued by misinterpretation: intentionality can be identified and clarified effectively by interaction aside from the main discourse. It is where written speech is unclear, without recourse to an author that problems occur: the spoken word seems to lose its life on the written page.

Enguage

The disambiguation mechanism described has been developed for enguage, an experimental text understanding interface for mobile devices [START_REF] Wheatman | A Semiotic Analysis of, "If we are holding hands, whose hand am I holding[END_REF]7,8,9]. It uses the speech-to-text and text-to-speech services of mobile operating systems, allowing utterances to affect a response. To do this it constructs, on-the-fly, a set of potential interpreters for each utterance. Each micro-interpreter, or sign, consist of: a pattern, with which to match an utterance, and a corresponding train of thought, consisting of further utterances. Together, these signs along with persistent contextual data are combined into what is generally referred to as interpretant that is constructed during the process of interpretation [START_REF] Peirce | Collected Papers[END_REF]. Thus, meaning is based upon pattern matching rather than adherence to a syntax, so that the Eagle has landed is distinct from the X has landed.

A pattern consists of constant boilerplate tokens, represented here in lowercase, and variable hotspots, e.g. the X has landed. A hotspot can be flagged as representing a phrase if prefixed with PHRASE-, where the terminator is the token following the pattern or the end of utterance, e.g. may name is PHRASE-NAME, where NAME would match Martin or Martin Wheatman. Matched values become part of the overall context, e.g. X="Jumbo", along with the particular train of thought for this sign.

Signs are organized into repertoires each of which supports a computable concept. For example, the need concept in the iNeed app [START_REF] Wheatman | [END_REF], in essence, is a list manipulated with the repertoire: i do not need anything; i need X; i do not need X; and, what do i need. A sign construction repertoire [START_REF] Wheatman | An Autopoietic Repertoire[END_REF] is built into enguage so that a repertoire itself is also a set of natural language utterances: text understanding is selfconstructed, or autopoietic, in the same manner that a C compiler is written in C. Thus, natural language is interpreted in natural language: it is decomposed into more specific terms until an unequivocal conceptualization reached.

Disambiguation Mechanisms

Three algorithms are used to disambiguate utterances. Firstly, one gives an objective order to signs, and thus a defined order to meaning. Secondly, two in-built repertoires afford the user the ability to implicitly affect this ordering. The first of these is the ability to re-search the interpretant; second, based on the first, gives the user the ability to choose a meaning by revealing and hiding interpretations, determined by the feedback, or perlocution [START_REF] Austin | How To Do Things With Words[END_REF], within the ordered signs.

Ordering

Signs are ordered in increasing pattern complexity, so the least-complex matching pattern is matched first: the eagle has landed is matched before the X has landed. Further, the X has landed is matched before the PHRASE-X has landed. This is to ensure that specialized-singular-variables take precedence.

To achieve this patterns are hashed on their complexity: primarily on the number and complexity of hotspots (i.e. a phrased hotspot is given a higher value) and secondarily on the length of (number of tokens in) its boilerplate. Length of boilerplate is significant where there is a phrased hotspot: the shorter the boilerplate, the higher the complexity values. This is because a phrased hotspot potentially matches an infinite number of tokens, so is given an arbitrarily high value (e.g. MAXINT), then any boilerplate and non-phrased hotspots are subtracted from this, meaning that i have to PHRASE-X matches before i have PHRASE-X, i.e. (MAXINT -3) < (MAXINT -2).

Correction

While speech-to-text systems are remarkable, they can create unintended translations: speech can be misheard. Because the speech-to-text in iNeed is presented directly to enguage, the ability to correct after the fact is required. Further, and pertinent to this paper, natural language is ambiguous: enguage cannot guarantee the above ordering achieves the intended match.

General Correction

Enguage provides an inbuilt sign for general correction which uses a simple transactional persistent memory system. Changes to persistent memory are written to a provisional overlay. If one utterance is simply followed by another, the current provisional overlay is transferred to the database before it is repopulated. To obtain a correction, the provisional overlay is deleted before a new one is created.

The correctional sign has the pattern no PHRASE-X. On matching this pattern, the provisional overlay is removed and the utterance PHRASE-X is uttered. This allows the user to retract an utterance. It requires that operations that physically cannot be undone are initiated by several interlocking concepts. Further, there is a commitment to the design of repertoires such that no PHRASE-X is not matched to noncorrectional (no son of mine X springs to mind). Being almost entirely composed of hotspot (one phrased hotspot with very little boilerplate), this will be almost the last pattern to be matched. So, all utterances beginning with no must explicitly be matched. However, this will not include the single answer no as there is no associated hotspot. Further, many utterances such as no don't take him to the gallows will work fine, as this is a natural use of this form.

This ability to affect changes to the operation of the software shows that this system is pragmatic, that the correction mechanism is implicit in the conversation between user and app -based on assessment of perlocution: replies from utterances.

Special Correction

There is also a modification to this correctional mechanism which disambiguates utterances. It is triggered if the new utterance, without the initial no, is the same as the last. The first match of an interpretant pattern is then ignored, finding the next one. These signs are then swapped in the interpretant order to maintain this new context on subsequent utterances. If another no PHRASE-X is uttered, and the X matches the previous utterance, both the first and second matched patterns are ignored to find the third, and so on. This is dependent on the replies in interpretant -perlocution -to reflect the intentions of the user: it is for the speaker to decide if they have been misunderstood. This is seen as being the natural way that misunderstanding is corrected in human discourse: user: The Eagle has landed. app: Ok, we've a bunch of guys here about to turn blue! user: No the Eagle has landed. app: Ok, the eagle has returned to its nest.

In practice, is has been found that a corrected utterance is automatically chosen by a speaker, rather than repeating the phrase to force disambiguation. For example, in the above interaction, the user reply may very well be No the Eagle has returned to the nest. This will not result in any signs being swapped.

Pragmatism

The reflecting of user intent shows that this process is pragmatic, that the actions taken (or proposed as being taken) depend on the interaction of the user and app, not in some hypothetical absolute meaning. It requires that the repertoire unequivocally reflects the app's interpretation: the repertoire should plainly confirm the specific action taken in response to each utterance. So, my name is X should have a reply of ok, your name is X. There is a minor issue here in the enguage interpreter; there is a obtuse option which returns only up to the comma. So ok, your name is X will reply ok. This mode can be used if the user is happy with the operation of the app, or if they are sure there is no ambiguity in the repertoire. Otherwise, the default (verbose) mode should be used, which replies the full phrase.

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The Test

A test repertoire, which doesn't rely on any special cases or context, has been devised to fully demonstrate this disambiguation mechanism. This repertoire includes three signs with identical patterns, each with a separate significant train of thought.

On "this is a test": perform "list add _user needs meaning one"; then, reply "this reaches meaning one".

On "this is a test": perform "list add _user needs meaning two"; then, reply "this reaches meaning two".

On "this is a test": perform "list add _user needs meaning three"; then, reply "this reaches meaning three".

Contribution and Further Work

Engauge is a text understanding interface allowing developers to create context dependent natural language apps. It provides many generic features for the conversation engineer, of which disambiguation is possibly the most important as it provides the key to context dependent processing across all repertoires. To be certain, it is not an AI chatbot designed for the Turing Test [START_REF] Loebner | In Response[END_REF].

The mechanism overcomes structural issues with syntax and semantics by exploiting, at a pragmatic level, the human ability to detect and direct intent. It builds upon pattern matching so that meaning is determined by the boilerplate and in the interpretation of hotspot values, rather than individual word types and structures comprising a syntax tree. It utilizes a general correction mechanism, aiding its simplicity; it avoids the many individual forms of ambiguity. This is not a mechanism for avoiding ambiguity; ambiguity will always occur, it simplifies the interaction needed when it is deemed to have occurred. In that it affords the user to direct intent, it is pragmatic. However, it is restricted to a discourse system -where there is interaction between the app and user-it cannot aid applications which are restricted to the structural domain: it will be of no use to the semantic analyses of corpora [START_REF] Anthony | AntConc Software[END_REF] which does not work within a conversation. This work also serves to highlight differences between the spoken and written word. Current spoken word speech systems do not, in general, register pauses and intonation which could aid disambiguation. However, working with text, an arbitrary list of strings could also include emojis and other non-vocal ephemera to help identify intent. Written repertoires-including the autopoietic repertoire -use punctuation to express clearly. Further work includes producing a simplified, completely vocal autopoietic repertoire: X implies Y works already, but X is conceptually Y needs developing. Furthermore, context-free data types, such as number and when, have been instigated which needs to be enhanced by the concepts of where and class.

Dedication

This paper is dedicated to my father, James Malcolm Wheatman 11.2.1931Wheatman 11.2. -7.4.2016