Towards a structured online consultation tool

{{Summary
 * title=Towards a structured online consultation tool
 * authors=Adam Wyner, Katie Atkinson, Trevor Bench-Capon
 * url=http://wyner.info/research/Papers/WynerABCePart2011.pdf
 * tags=argumentation, online argumentation, e-participation, Parmenides, IMPACT Project
 * summary=This paper describes the Structured Online Consultation Tool (SCT), one of four planned tools in the IMPACT project, which used a shared computational model of argumentation in order to improve government consultation. The other tools focus on argument reconstruction, argument visualization, and policy modeling, while the SCT will "harvest justifications" for aspects of polices. It is designed to draw out and differentiate alternate viewpoints, increasing the granularity of comments, rather than requiring commenters to agree or disagree only at the level of an entire policy.

It is intended to balance the need for formalism (in order to enable automatic processing) with the ease of use by non-experts who should not be required to "provide systematic, formal, machine-readable arguments".

The authors differentiate SCT from the related initiatives they review because it is based on a formal, computational model of argumentation, using argument schemes and argument frameworks, and provides a semantic analysis of the comments. They observe that policies should be maximal sets of consistent arguments (known as "preferred extensions").

Further, they observe that argument schemes 'provide clear, fixed, and fine-grained “discussion points”, such as those concerning current circumstances, actions, goals, values, expertise, domains, and so on'. By framing the discussion in terms of the possible places of disagreement, the conversation becomes structured "and makes coherent the policy-making."

It will be a modular (OSGi) Rich Internet Application, and the Parmenides ePetition system is being used as a draft implementation.

Additional Argumentation Schemes
Justifying arguments in policy-making may require particular argumentation schemes. Existing schemes may also be combined, e.g. they suggest that Expert Opinion, Position to Know, Citation, Witness Testimony, Perception, Popular Opinion, etc. may be subsumed under a root argumentation scheme "Argument from Credible Source". E is a credible source in subject domain S; S contains proposition A; E asserts that it is true that A; therefore, A. Further, argumentation related to alternatives (and justification of those alternatives) must also be considered.

They also discuss parsing arguments in various levels:
 * the entire argument
 * identifying premises and claim
 * identifying the argument scheme associated with the premises and claim
 * instantiating the argument scheme

Formalizations of these schemes are expected to advance argumentation.

Selected References
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 * Walton, D., Reed, C., Macagno, F.: Argumentation Schemes. Cambridge University Press (2008)
 * relevance=Part of the IMPACT project: See also Adam Wyner's blog category and the EU project summary.
 * pub_date=2011/08
 * subject=Computer Science