Transcript Systemic Semiotic Design Practice:

BUSS 909
Office Automation & Intranets
Lecture 7
Internet, Intranets and Extranets:
Definition, Analysis and Design
Clarke, R. J (2001) L909-07:
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Agenda
Basic Definitions
Communicative Definitions
Structure in Communication
Design Issues
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Basic Definitions
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Basic Definitions (1)
Origins of the term ‘Intranet’
the term ‘intranet’ was used by Amdahl
to describe their own internal network:
“An intranet is a private computer network
uses Internet standards and protocols to
enable members of an organisation to
communicate and collaborate more
efficiently with one another thereby
increasing productivity.” (Hills 1999 in Greer
1998, 2)
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Basic Definitions (2)
Internet versus Intranets
Intranets employ net-aware
technologies within organisationsthe prefix ‘intra’ means ‘within’
confusingly, the prefix ‘inter’ means
‘between’ yet the Internet provides
net-aware technologies to entities in
the environment
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Basic Definitions (3)
Physical Boundary between Inter/Intranets?
 this suggests that a physical boundary is
being used to distinguish between these
realms (see SL-00.PPT)
A: System Theoretic
Environment
System
Boundary
B: Organisational
Public or Marketplace
Organisation
C: Applied Technology
Internet
Intranet
Organisational
Boundary
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Basic Definitions (4)
Inter/Intranets: Zone not Physical Boundary
 even this simple view can be disrupted by
considering firewall deployment to protect
intranets from internet attack
A: Applied Technology
B: Demilitarised Zone (DMZ)
Internal Firewall
Internet
Large number of
internal requests 
Intranet
Some requests
are rejected at IF 
but others are
passed onto EF 
Trusted Requests
from EF enter the
Intranet via IF 
External Firewall

DMZ

Large number of
external hits 


IF


EF


Many requests are
rejected at EF ,
but some are
passed onto IF 
Trusted Requests
from IF enter the
Internet via EF 
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Basic Definitions (5)
Communicatively defined Zone ...
intranets are usually separated from the
internet by a Demilitarised Zone (DMZ)not a single ‘physical’ boundary:
although the DMZ concerns technical issues
(IP packets etc.), it is defined
communicatively
it involves a telecommunications security
policy executed using hardware and software
(firewalls and proxy servers
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Basic Definitions (6)
… Communicatively defined Zone
but behind this technical policy is a
social process which decides about
audience classification- who constitutes an
appropriate organisational member
(exclude messages from unknown agents)
if a message is sent by an external known
agent can it be judged as trusted or useful
should specific organisational members
have access to particular sites
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Basic Definitions (7)
Intranet/Extranet Relationships
from a technical point of view you
need all the functionality that intranets
provide in order to set up an extranet
in this way extranets are thought of as an
extension or option to an intranet
the difference is ultimately about
recognising that an individual or group
has special privileges compared to the
rest of the public or market
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Basic Definitions (8)
Extranets are communicatively defined ...
extranets are communicatively definedrelating to audience with respect to their
membership to the organisation
in addition to audience, trustworthiness,
usefulness etc...
the very definition of what is inside or outside
the system is defined according to the kind of
communication agents do or can enter into at
a particular point in time
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Basic Definitions (9)
… Extranets are communicatively defined
A: Traditional System
Environment
Organisation
A': Applied Technology
Internet
B: External Entity
External Entity
Organisation
B': Passive Extranet
Internet
Intranet
C: Internal Client
Extranet
Organisation
C': Active Extranet
Internet
Extranet
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Basic Definitions (10)
Extranets: Significance of the Definition
the issue of how to correctly theorise
internets, intranets and extranets by
means of communicative distinctions
between them- is very important
this issue is becoming more important
for information economies with the rise
of virtual organisations- these can only
be sensibly defined in terms of human
communication
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Basic Definitions (11)
Similarities between Extranets and EDI ...
EDI is limited to B2B transactions,
however extranets and Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI) share many similarities:
extranets are now becoming the main way of
implementing EDI and as most EDI is
conducted using SGML, extranets and EDI
share some technical similarities as well
analysis aspects of establishing extranets
are very similar to those of EDI
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Basic Definitions (11)
… Similarities between Extranets and EDI
Commonwealth of Australian (1992)
Speaking EDI- Video 2 : Case Studies
ISBN 0642 176558 6
view a case studies video of successful
EDI implementation in Australian business
remembering that today EDI (that is B2B
transactions) are very likely to be
conducted using extranets and associated
technologies
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Communicative Definitions
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Communicative Definitions
Significance
 the case studies reveal not just the
importance of standardising data for its
exchange between organisations, but also ...
 ... the importance of human communication,
during development of these technologies,
and for specific types of organisational
purposes
 we can use human communication as a
means of defining the terms intranet, extranet
and internet
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Communicative Definitions
Principles, Features, Application
 we will first consider some principles of
human communication as distinct from
machine communication
 then describe some features that can be
analysed in human communication,
 attempt to tentatively apply these to
determining what is an intranet, an
extranet and the internet
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Communicative Principles (1)
Communication is about meanings
 communication is about meanings (social
positioning of sender and receiver,
information- statements about the world,
cultural attributes)
 need to look at actual or expected patterns of
communication (production and
consumption of meanings)
 communication never involves ‘just’
individuals expressing their meanings
(always socially and culturally formed)
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Communicative Principles (2)
Not about sharing- its about differences
 communication is not just about sharingsocieties and organisations always consist
of multiple social and cultural groupings
 interactions between them involve
contradiction and contestation as much as
sharing
 therefore, the processes of communication
are likely simultaneously to be based on
difference and the ‘resolution of differences’
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Communicative Principles (3)
Communicative Practices, Cultural Literacy
 meanings associated with human
communication must be understood as being
produced in specific national and /or
organisational cultures
 communicative practices : the ways in which
these systems of meaning are negotiated by
users in a culture
 cultural literacy: knowledge of meaning
systems and an ability to negotiate them in
different contexts
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Communicative Principles (4)
Traditional IS theory inadequate
the (above) principles are completely
absent from the Shannon & Weaver
model of communication used in IS:
the relationship between communication
and culture
the idea that meaning and communicative
practices are context specific
the existence and importance of cultural
literacy
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Communicative Principles (5)
 if we want to understand the differences
between Intranets, Extranets, and the
Internet, weneed to look at the
communications that are occurring
between and within the organisation
 we cannot understand these
communications or conduct an analysis
without being familiar with organisational
cultures that make certain meanings
possible of impossible
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Communicative Features (1)
 the unit used here to define organisational
communication (within/between) is
confusingly called a text
 a product (document)- in that it is an output, or
object with an analysable structure
 a process- social and interactive writers/readers and
speakers/listeners are interpreting meanings
 completed act of communication in any medium
(exhibit, rock concert, films etc)
 defined in relation to its social context- must do so
in order to make any sense
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Communicative Features (2)
Cultural
Context
Situational
Context
Language
 two types of context
recognised by the theory
(after Malinowski)
 Situational Context which
provides secific situational
‘values’ to the text
 Cultural Context which
provides a pattern or
template that is portable
across different situations
within a national or
organisational culture
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Communicative Features (3)
 situational context (register) includes the
following features which can be analysed in a
text:
 field: social actions and activities- the topic or focus
of an activity- lexical items or indexical lexical items
(reception, priest, bands, ‘I do’)
 tenor: social role relationships played by interactants
affects how language is used (customer/slaesman)
 mode: the role language is playing in the interaction
 these features influence each otherand also
influence the genre
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Communicative Features (4)
 cultural context (genre) :
 describes the structural arrangement of a text
type according to genre elements which are
functional linguistic categories used to
describe the purpose of a stretch of a text (see
in T909-02).
 genre elements do nor represent an IS
process- closest to this social activity defined
by field; nor do they represent data- closest to
this is mode; not do they represent turn taking
because they are functional not personal
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Communicative Application (1)
 defining the differences between Intranets and
Extranets using this theory is straightforward,
but:
conducting an analysis of these
technologies, involves analysing actual texts
associated with there use
in the case of designing new extranet
functionality need to identify the kinds of
communication that are likely, treat these as
texts and analyse them appropriately
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Communicative Application (2)
Defining Extranets
new activities will be given new
indexical lexical items
where the same workpractice exists
using different names a new common
naming convention may be adopted by
both organisations/units, or
the more powerful organisation/unit
may insist on there existing naming
convention
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Communicative Application (3)
… Defining Extranets ...
changes may occur to the naming of
job positions, and shifts in role
relationships between two
organisations and units
shifts in the kind of language used to
accommodate external members in the
environment who are now part of the
organisation
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Communicative Application (3)
… Defining Extranets
more explicit descriptions of tasks,
functions etc.:
because external extranet
members/organisations will not
share the same cultural literacy as
members of an organisation!
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Social Context and Language
In General...
every text refers to its social contextit must do in order to make any sense
must do so in order to be meaningful
that is to communicate something to
someone
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Social Context and Language
Realisation
in order to show the relationship
between language and social context
we use concentric ovals (see next
slide)
one semiotic system (language) is a
realisation of another more abstract
one (social context)
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Structure in Communication
Example 1: Buying Bread in Australia
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Contextual Configuration (CC)
specifies the values or options of the
field, tenor and mode for a given
context of situation
using CC you can ‘predict’ (Hasan)
what is likely to occur (in general
terms) in the text
need to specify CC before collecting
texts
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Contextual Configuration
Buying Bread
Field (economic transaction)
 purchase of retail goods, perishable food
Tenor (agents of transaction)
hierarchic: customer superordinate and
vendor subordinate; social distance near
maximal
Mode (language role)
ancilliary; channel: phonic; medium:
spoken with visual contact
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Example 1: Buying Bread (1)
Hypothetical Transcript (Australia)
Buying Bread Text
Who’s next?
I think I am
Can I have a loaf of bread please?
Yes, anything else
Yes
I’d like a cinnamon donut
Will that be all?
Yeah, thanks.
That’ll be $1.85
0 [hands over $2.00 coin]
10 and 5 is 15, thanks
Have a nice day
Thanks
This type of text is so
familiar to us that we
can even tell who said
what and when
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Example 1: Buying Bread (3)
Turn Taking
Buying Bread Text
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
Buyer Seller
Who’s next?
I think I am
Can I have a loaf of bread please?
Yes, anthing else
Yes
I’d like a cinnamon donut
Will that be all?
Yeah, thanks.
That’ll be $1.85
0 [hands over $2.00 coin]
10 and 5 is 15, thanks
Have a nice day
Thanks
In this text their are
only two participants,
a Buyer and a Seller
of Bread
The numbers indicate
turn-taking between
the participants
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Example 1: Buying Bread (4)
Linguistic Stages in the Text
Buying Bread Text
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
Buyer Seller
Who’s next?
I think I am
Can I have a loaf of bread please?
Yes, anthing else
Yes
I’d like a cinnamon donut
Will that be all?
Yeah, thanks.
That’ll be $1.85
0 [hands over $2.00 coin]
10 and 5 is 15, thanks
Have a nice day
Thanks
But there is more
than just participants
taking turns. Their
is a familiar linguistic
staging of events
in the transcript.
Each stage is called a
genre element. Each
genre element is
functionally defined.
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Example 1: Buying Bread (5)
Genre Elements
Buying Bread Text
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
Buyer Seller
Who’s next?
I think I am
Can I have a loaf of bread please?
Yes, anything else
Yes
I’d like a cinnamon donut
Will that be all?
Yeah, thanks.
That’ll be $1.85
0 [hands over $2.00 coin]
10 and 5 is 15, thanks
Have a nice day
Thanks
Genre Element
Sales Initiation (SI)
Sale Request (SR)
Sale Compliance (SC)
Sale Request (SR)
Sale Compliance (SC)
Sale (S)
Purchase (P)
Purchase Closure (PC)
Finis (F)
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Example 1: Buying Bread (6)
Genre Elements
are functional linguistic categories
used to describe the purpose of a
stretch of text
created as needed and should
represent a unique purpose for a
text
created when there is a change in
field, tenor or mode
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Example 1: Buying Bread (7)
Genre Elements
do not represent a process as per
IS- closest analogy is social activity
as in field
do not represent data as per ISclosest analogy is that of language
mode
do not represent turn taking
because genre elements are
functional not personal
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Example 1: Buying Bread (8)
Genre Elements
are negotiated between participants
therefore there is no guarentee of the
successful completion of an element
also embody ‘error correction’
protocols in language
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Example 1: Buying Bread (9)
Genre Sequence
The sequence of genre elements
forms the genre sequence for the
‘activity of buying bread in Australia’
it is an example of a service
encounter genre (just like buying a
railway ticket, buying a shirt etc..)
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Design Issues
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Design
as a ‘Black Art’
the design of actual Intranets and
Extranets is a black art- there are no
hard and fast rukes
generally the web-based components
are incrementally added as the scale
or size of increases:
web servers discussed last week
firewalls and proxy servers described
next week
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Design
Small Internet S/W Company (1)
small company = <1000 employees
firewall is loose- does not restrict any
outward bound connections
inbound connections blocked except for
incoming e-mail, news feeds, web
Requirements:
proxy server is used to conserve bandwidth
to the external network
filtering of requests is not required because
the firewall is loose
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Design
Small Internet S/W Company (2)
users can unset proxy server in the client
software and bypass the proxy server
as a consequence no authentication needed
Implementation:
single proxy server (128MB RAM; 2 GB
cache)
cron job rotates logs once per week
no secondary failover proxy as organisation
is encouraging open use
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Links
Amdahl Corporation http://www.amdahl.com/
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Readings
Relevant readings are provided in the
BUSS909 Reader (#24 & 25):
 Lodin, S. W. and C. L. Schuba (1998) “Firewalls
fend off invasions from the Net” IEEE Spectrum
February 1998, 35 (2), 26-34
 Oppliger, R. (1997) “Internet Security: Firewalls
and Beyond” Communications of the ACM May 40
(5) 92-102
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