Open policy ontology

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The structure of shared understanding describes the information structures that are needed to document shared understanding of a complex decision situation.

Question

What information structures and information tools are needed to document shared understanding in such a way that

• it can be operationalised and managed and used for automatic inferences by a computer,
• it can systematically organise information objects used in open assessment, such as variables, statements,
• can represent each participant's views systematically as a part of the whole even if people disagree,
• it is intuitive enough to be used by non-experts?

Answer

Shared understanding aims at producing a description of different views, opinions, and facts related to a specific topic such as a decision process. The structure of shared understanding describes the information structures that are needed to document shared understanding of a complex decision situation. The purpose of the structure is to help people identify hidden premises, beliefs, and values and explicate possible discrepancies. This is expected to produce better understanding among participants.

The basic structure of a shared understanding is a network of items and relations between then. Items and relations are collectively called things. Each item is typically of one of the types mentioned below. The first three types are knowledge crystals with the structure question-answer-rational. They are used in open assessments.

• Assessment describes a decision situation and typically provides relevant information to decision makers before the decision is made. It is about the knowledge work for decision support.
• Variable describes a real-world topic that is relevant for the decision situation. It is about the substance of the topic.
• Method describes how information should be managed or analysed so that it will answer the policy-relevant questions asked. It is about methods.
• Discussion, or structured argumentation, describes arguments about a particular statement and a synthesis about an acceptable statement. There are two kinds of statements:
  • Fact statement is any text that claims something about the world.
  • Value statement is any text that claims that something ought to be or that it is better then something else.

In the structure of shared understanding, each item may have lengthy texts, graphs, analyses or even models inside them. However, the focus here is on how the items are related to each other. The actual content is here referred to as one key sentence only (description) or even a short, memorable name. However, each item also has a unique identifier (ID) that is used for automatic handling of data. Below is an example of items in a summary table. The whole discussion can be found from page Voting age.

A sample of item summary from shared understanding about Voting age.

ID	Timestamp	User	Description	Type	Name
1	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni	Immaturity is a reason to exclude	Value	Immaturity
2	Thu Apr 6 13:07:46 2017	Jouni	16-year-olds are mature to do other things as difficult as voting sex, army, speaking publically	Value	Mature enough
3	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni	Most 16-year-olds are not mature enough emotionally	Fact	Not yet mature
6	Thu Apr 6 13:09:46 2017	Jouni	Actions that reduce political apathy should be implemented	Value	Reduce apathy
7	Thu Apr 6 13:10:46 2017	Jouni	Waiting before voting increases apathy	Fact, variable	Waiting passivates
8	Thu Apr 6 13:11:46 2017	Jouni	Young people are politically apathic anyway.	Fact	Young apathetic
27	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni	16-year-olds are mature enough to vote	Value	16 are mature
4	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni	If you are taxed, you should get to vote	Value	Voting if taxed
5	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni	Everyone who uses money pays VAT tax.	Fact	Everyone is taxed
37	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni	Voting right can be given based on specified reasons	Value	Given with reasons

Relations are sentences that connect one item (subject) with a verb (predicate) to another item (object), possibly with qualifiers about scoping, references etc. In the structure of shared understanding, one key idea is that the relations are straightforward and simple enough so that a computer can make inferences about the items and their relations. Therefore, the number of relations is kept small. Some relations are the same as used in Wikidata. These are the key relations:

• From set theory:
  • instance of: subject belongs to a set defined by the object and inherits the properties of the set.
  • subclass of: subject is a subset of object.
• From logics:
  • if - then: If subject is true, then object is true. Also the opposite is possible: if - then not.
  • opposite of: subject is opposite of object.
  • and, or, equal, exists, for all: logical operators.
  • has context: subject given that object is true.
• Causal:
  • affects: (more specifically cause of, immediate cause of, contributing factor of). May have specifying qualifiers such as increases, decreases etc.
• Other:
  • makes relevant: if the subject is relevant in the given context, then also the object is. This typically goes from a variable to value statement or from a value statement to a fact statement.
  • has reference: object is a reference that backs up statements presented in the subject.
  • has tag: object is a keyword, type, or class for subject. Used in classifications.
  • associates to: subject is associated to object in some way. This is a weak relation and does not affect the outcomes of inferences, but it may be useful to remind users that an association exists and it should be clarified more precisely.
  • has truthlikeness: A subjective probability that subject is true. Object is a numeric value between 0 and 1. Typically this has a qualifier "according to X" where X is the person who has assigned the probability.
  • has preference: subject is better than object in a moral sense.
  • attacks, defends, comments: these argumentative relations are typically used within discussions to reach a statement. Therefore they rarely show up in the structure of shared understanding.
  • There may also be mathematical and functional relations, but they are typically used within models. Therefore they rarely show up here.

A sample of relations about Voting age.

ID	Timestamp	User	Description	Subject	Predicate	Object	Name
6	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni	Opposes = if – then not	Not yet mature	opposes	Mature enough
7	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni	Supports = if – then	Mature enough	supports	16 are mature
8	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni		Immaturity AND 16 are mature	supports	Voting for 16
11	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni		Given with reasons AND Voting if taxed	supports	Voting for 16
14	Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017	Jouni		Voting if taxed	makes relevant	Everyone is taxed