User Driven Modelling - Applications

This visual modelling is similar to collaborative spreadsheet modelling, but for these research models the visualisation and the code structure are exactly the same. This means users effectively can see an audit trail at all times in the modelling, and that the gap between those that program/model, and users is reduced. This makes both computing automated translation, and human collaboration/domain translation easier. This research is mainly aimed at users whose models/programs are too complex for spreadsheets. This means that themselves and other modellers/users lose track of information. These modellers/users often do not have the time and/or facilities for the programming tasks they need.

Automated translation and visualisation of models is essential as if they are manually copied by humans, there are almost certain to be errors in the copying of any large model to a different system. For such models an error anywhere in the model makes the result wrong. Visualising over collaborative networks, and of the whole structure also allows those responsible for checking and maintenance of each individual part of it to spot any mistakes, so this again acts as an effective audit trail.

Demonstration interactive models are shown at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/EconomicModels/ModelsVisualised.htm.

Visualisation and Interaction for Modelling

Eng and Salustri (2006) outline the role of computers in aiding decision making, and explain that the human mind is the best tool for making decisions. They explain that visualisation systems must help people use the information access capabilities of computers. Eng and Salustri refer to a dimension from “tacit to articulatable” knowledge. So the research for this thesis aims to use the layered Semantic architecture described by Berners Lee et al. (2000) and discussed by McGuinness (2003) relating to this diagram :-

Layered Architecture, sourced from McGuinness (2003) and Berners-Lee (2000)

This improves translatation between the layers to enable human/computer translation. This approach is intended to improve interaction rather than enable computing decision making through artificial intelligence; the emphasis is on decision support for design and manufacture. The detail of this approach and the methodology for automating translation for users is explained in here - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/#ResearchMethodology. Such techniques as genetic algorithms are outside the scope of this thesis. Instead the emphasis is on clear visualisation, interaction and translation.

This translation code reproduces a taxonomy/ontology and makes it available for modelling/programming systems. This taxonomy/ontology is a copied subset of the main ontology produced as an instance of the main ontology according to model builder choices and for the modelling/programming purposes of that model builder.



Recursive Translation - Automated Copying from ontology to modelling system

Also the translation can link different ontologies/taxonomies together when they are required in order to solve a problem. So the approach is to gather information from ontologies/taxonomies as required for solving a problem as specified by the model builder. This is tested and applied to engineering modelling. An open source approach can be combined with use of open standards ontologies as was advocated by Cheung (2005).

References

Berners-Lee, T., (2000) Semantic Web on XML – Slide 10 [online]. Available from: http://www.w3.org/2000/Talks/1206-xml2k-tbl/slide1-0.html [Accessed 26 June 2008].

Cheung, W. M., Maropoulos, P. G., Gao, J. X., Aziz, H., 2005. Ontological Approach for Organisational Knowledge Re-use in Product Developing Environments. In: 11th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising - ICE 2005, University BW Munich, Germany.

Eng, N., Salustri, F. A., 2006. "Rugplot" Visualization for Preliminary Design. In: CDEN 2006 3rd CDEN/RCCI International Design Conference University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

McGuinness D. L., 2003. Ontologies Come of Age. In: Dieter Fensel, Jim Hendler, Henry Lieberman, and Wolfgang Wahlster, ed. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential. MIT Press, 2003 [online]. Available from: http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/people/dlm/papers/ontologies-come-of-age-mit-press-(with-citation).htm [Accessed 26 June 2008].

Research Development

It is important to enable changes to the design of the information source and its structure as necessary, even when it contains information. This makes possible continuous improvement of the information and its representation together. Clear visualisation of the structure makes out of date and duplicate information obvious, so it can be changed by the end-users of the information. This provides for maintenance of information quality without necessitating end-users to understand relational database design; though relational databases can still be used for information where the frequency of structural change is less.

The diagrams below shows the way iterative development is used both in this research and in the implementation to ensure that changes can be made systematically as necessary and without disrupting the project.

Research and Development for Thesis

Information about my Research is at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/.

Drag and Drop Visual Programming

2 main conclusions resulted from examining the history of end-user computing :-

• Research that created prototype systems for specialist users, school children, and other researchers and programmers, but failed to take make headway in the mass market can be reused with more up to date technology to assist development.

• More pragmatic research that involved creation of tools for the mass market, but which avoided more long term research issues can now be extended.

One mechanism for applying new technologies for use in end-user programming is drag and drop programming.

Repenning (2007) explains the need for enhancements to UML to aid end-user programming. Repenning also argues that "Visual programming languages using drag and drop mechanisms as the programming approach makes it virtually impossible to create syntactic errors." So "With the syntactic challenge being - more or less - out of the way we can focus on the semantic level of End-User Programming." This can make a high level model driven approach to production of better models possible. Rosson (2007) also explains about creation of a web-based drag and drop interface.

Ways that research is pursued in this thesis in order to make User Driven Programming possible are:-

1. Semantic Web and Web 2.0 approach to enabling User Generated Content.

2. User Centric Extensions to UML (Unified Modelling Language) e.g. (Vernazza, 2007) this approach also ventures into 1 and 3).

3. Visual Programming Extensions to spreadsheet type formulae based modelling enabled using approach 1.

Approach 1 is illustrated by Yahoo Pipes (2008) which provides for drag and drop editing of visual components that can combine, sort, and filter RSS data sources in order to automate web application development. This enables modelling of information, and using such diagrammatic programming combined with enabling of calculations would combine these three ways of producing applications. Yahoo Pipes enables creation of modelling applications with Semantic Web information, so this could assist in providing more incentive for provision of Semantic Web information and applications to use it.

So there is considerable overlap between these three approaches and they must be integrated within interdisciplinary research to enable user driven programming. One approach to this is a Semantic User Interface; this is explained in Vernazza (2007). This can enable Drag and Drop programming that combines the benefits of all three research approaches. The important factor is to connect the user interface with the underlying code, so the two share the same structure and users can properly see how their actions can change the actual code. This enables collaborative User-Driven programming.

References

Pipes and Filters for the Internet - http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/02/pipes-and-filters-for-the-inte.html - O'Reilly - Feb 7 2007 - Yahoo!'s new Pipes service is a milestone in the history of the internet. It's a service that generalizes the idea of the mashup, providing a drag and drop editor that allows you to connect internet data sources, process them, and redirect the output.

Repenning, A., 2007. End-User Design. In: End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar.

Rosson, M. B., 2007. Position paper for EUSE 2007 at Dagstuhl. In: End-User Software Engineering Dagstuhl Seminar.

Vernazza, L., 2007. Himalia: Model-Driven User Interfaces Using Hypermedia, Controls and Patterns In: IFAC/IFIP/IFORS IEA Symposium - Analysis, Design, and Evaluation of Human-Machine Systems Seoul, Korea - September 4-6th 2007 - International Federation of Automatic Control.

Yahoo Pipes [online]. Available from: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ [Accessed May 22nd 2008].

This is a Yahoo Pipes example created for the subject of Web 2.0/AJAX -

Yahoo Pipes RSS Feed for Web 2.0 - http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=3e30625ebd44f24ff969ae5eef724425

An explanation of how to access and use the pipe created from a web page is at - Code Explanataion/Tutorial Freshblog - Blogger Hacks, Categories, Tips & Tricks - http://blogfresh.blogspot.com/2007/03/pipes-json-and-code-for-your-website.html.

Another article I wrote on Drag and Drop programming is at http://ezinearticles.com/?Drag-and-Drop-Programming&id=671578 and information and examples at http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/Ajax/ajax.htm#DragandDropProgramming

PhD Thesis Summary

There are many computer literate people who are experts in a particular domain. This research examines enabling computer literate engineers to model problems in software by minimising the code writing they need to undertake. Software development is difficult for many engineers as they often do not have the time, experience, or access to software development tools necessary to model their problems. Using a combination of modelling via use of formulae (equations) and visualisation of the way these formulae interact it is possible to construct modelling software without requiring code. Crapo et al (2002) explain the need for a methodology for creation of systems to enable more collaborative approaches to modelling by domain expert end-users, and that this combined with visualisation would allow engineers to model problems accurately. This technique of User Driven Modelling/Programming could be widely applicable to any problem that requires linked equations to be represented and tracked, and results from these calculated. While some argue that end-user programming is an insurmountable problem, this problem could be tackled by many researchers co-operating to create specific solutions to different kinds of end user programming problems while also sharing findings, to assist with progress towards a more generic solution.

Crapo, A. W., Waisel, L. B., Wallace, W. A., Willemain, T. R., 2002. Visualization and Modelling for Intelligent Systems. In: C. T. Leondes, ed. Intelligent Systems: Technology and Applications, Volume I Implementation Techniques, 2002 pp 53-85.

More Information is available on my Home Page at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/.

PhD Summary - User Driven Programming

The research question to be answered in this thesis is - To what extent is it possible to improve collaborative software development through the use of diagrams without requiring people to learn computer languages?

My research involves enabling computer literate people who aren't programmers to create software. The means for this is construction of visual diagrams that represent the task, in a similar way to how family trees and taxonomies can be represented as diagrams. The visual interface is available from a website and the research involves translating this to code. The aim is to enable programming without requiring people to learn computer languages. I am particularly interested in making it possible for a wider range of people to collaborate on software development.

The methodology for this is automation by translation from a human level of abstraction to software.

The theory behind this thesis is that it is possible to create a systematic diagrammatic representation of logical thought to enable representation of user's wishes to a computer.

C.S. Peirce (1906) stated in 'Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism' "Come on, my Reader, and let us construct a diagram to illustrate the general course of thought; I mean a system of diagrammatization by means of which any course of thought can be represented with exactitude". That is the purpose of this research, but to limit the scope and so make application of this theory testable the research is restricted mainly to engineers (because they often think in terms of diagrams) and to the domain of modelling (which often requires diagrams). So the aim is to apply the research first where it can have the most use and encourage others to expand it for other domains and other users. This research is intended to simplify computing for computer literate non-programmers, this includes many engineers. The main research area is enabling users such as engineers to model the problems they encounter in manufacturing and design. However, the wider aim is to prototype research for enabling a larger range of software users to model their problems. The intention is to create collaborative tools that allow users to develop software in a way they will be familiar with from their use of spreadsheets.

The hypothesis is that it is possible to create an end-user programming environment, usable by non-programmers, which can have a wide variety of uses. The aim of this research is to create a modelling system that can be edited by computer literate non-programmers, and so demonstrate an application of end-user programming that could be used in a more generic way. The possibilities for a generic user-driven programming environment will be explained. It is possible to create an end-user visual programming environment using Semantic Web technologies, especially for modelling of information, where this approach is well suited. All that is necessary is to link the information visually via equations, and store these results for reuse and collaboration. This can make translation from humans to computers easier and more reliable than current software systems and languages. The use of Semantic Web languages as programming languages would assist greatly with interoperability as these languages are standardised for use in a wide range of computer systems.

The problem examined in this thesis is that of allowing domain experts to create decision support software. This is a way of testing the assumption that these domain expert's thoughts can be represented in a systematic diagrammatic way, and then translated to computer code. The main emphasis is on engineers, who experience problems in creating and sharing their software. The alternatives they have for creation of software are spreadsheets, which do not have collaboration and information modelling abilities sufficiently built in, or complex software that needs considerable expertise to use, and often still has insufficient collaboration or information modelling capabilities.

Peirce, C.S. - 1906. Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism http://www.existentialgraphs.com/peirceoneg/prolegomena.htm