icegov2012 proceedings

will enable to assess and confront pro- and cons- arguments to be
used by policy makers and government officials as inputs in
decision making processes.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents
an overview of the framework; while Section 3 explains the main
technologies applied in DECIDE 2.0 – context-based search and
argumentation using Defeasible Logic Programming (DeLP).
Finally, Section 4 outlines a roadmap for future work.
2. DECIDE 2.0 - OVERVIEW
DECIDE 2.0 aims at extending the current state of the art of web
2.0 technologies by integrating existing social media tools with
argumentation and context-aware technologies. Following its aim,
DECIDE 2.0 combines context-based search [6] and
argumentation [7] in a collaborative system for managing
(retrieving and publishing) service- and policy-related information
in social media tools used by governments. Therefore, DECIDE
2.0 contributes to a more enhanced set of Government 2.0 tools.
Context of
e-Government-
related
issue
Citizens
Citizens’
Opinion
Knowledge
base
post
opinions
C2) Argument-based
decision making
C1) Extracting opinions
using context-based
search
3. INTEGRATING ARGUMENTATION
AND CONTEXT-BASED SEARCH
Our approach involves two main stages: a) context-based search
from social media - C1 in Figure 1; and b) argumentative decision
making on the basis of the obtained information – C2, C3 and C4
in Figure 1. Next we will analyze these two stages in more detail.
3.1. Context-Based Search for Social Media
Context-based search in Twitter is an instance of context-based
search in general [6]. The task of context-based search could be
applied in many different situations. For example, a
contextualized suggestion interface could be useful to a journalist
for exploring information sources while she writes a news article.
It could also be helpful to a researcher, to identify novel but
r
Citizens’ Opinion
Database
Fig. 1. DECIDE 2.0 Framework
DECIDE 2.0 was originally presented in [8] and a revised version
of its architecture is presented in Figure 1. The architecture
comprises four main components: C1) Extracting Opinions -
based on data provided by social media, extracts citizens’
opinions on a given theme using context-based search and
produces formal predicates, and stores opinions and predicates in
a knowledgebase; C2) Argument-based Decision Making – based
on the generated knowledgebase, the component selects predicates
on a given theme; C3) Applying DeLP Web Services – predicates
are analyzed with DeLP web services to assess whether they
follow some assumptions or not; C4) Producing Global
Assessment – based on the results of the previous stage, arguments
are classified into pro- and cons- and are consolidated into a
global assessment of citizens’ opinion on a given theme.
Even though DECIDE 2.0 is intended to capture citizens’ opinions
from different social media, our current research is particularly
focused on the use of Twitter. Consequently, in what follows we
will outline part of our ongoing research in this direction.
SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS
167
C3) Applying Defeasible
Logic Programming
(DeLP) web services
C4) Producing global
assessment of citizens’
opinions
post
policy-related
issues
Citizens’
Opinion
(with details for
policy-making
oriented
decisions)
Government
Officials
related material to consider or to help assure that relevant areas
have been considered in her research work.
To illustrate our approach, we define a case study where
government stakeholders involved in a particular policy area are
interested in collecting opinions from Twitter on a topic that is
openly discussed by community members.
One of the goals of the proposed framework is to develop a topic
suggestion tool that has the capability of identifying a set of
opinions that share a common theme. We assume that a citizen’s
opinion refers to a certain theme and contains several terms. In
turn, the opinion may be related to one or more topics and it is
possible to associate each topic with the related terms in the
citizen’s opinion. In addition, the suggested topics can be
evaluated in the light of a set of criteria for assessing their quality.