Visible to the public Organizing the shared space

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sushilkbirla
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Paul: In the 2-day "brainstorming" have you come up with some topics on which discussion should continue in this space? In particular, I would like to see topics or discussion threads on issues that are cross-domain (of course examples from the medical device field are fine - people relate to them better anyway). For example, consider the topic "CONFIDENCE." An issue that may be of broad interest: Why should a confidence case be an entity distinct from a safety case? Confidence should be a property of the evidence or the argument and, as a result, a property of the claim.
sushilkbirla
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Confidence in an assurance case
An issue that may be of broad interest: Why should a confidence case be an entity distinct from a safety case? Confidence should be a property of the evidence or the argument and, as a result, a property of the claim.
jonespl
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Confidence in an assurance case

From the March 19-20 meeting it is clear that crisp properties for each of the elements of an assurance case need to be established. This includes claims, arguments, evidence, confidence, assumptions, context, etc. Further, we need "collectors" for the topics listed on the ACRG main web page.

Ideally we would have folders or something to collect thoughts for these different elements and topics. I don't know how best to accomplish this in order to avoid a colossal mess. Perhaps Chris can help us here.

Another concern in this process is the management of this space.

For example, how do we avoid clutter or reorganize things if a better idea develops?

RE: your comment on confidence, I agree - by the way, I assume the "or" is a boolean "or"?

RE: confidence case: you might want to take a look at the assurance case "file" posted by Oleg where an explicit confidence case is made. I tend to think that confidence will end up being an implicit kind of property, but I'm not ready to write off the possible benefits of an explicit confidence case yet.

sushilkbirla
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Posting references
Paul: Do you want psotings of reference documents from individual members? If so, should the postings be in some file-folder structure for ease of search or browsing? You might want to consult Chris.
Oleg Sokolsky
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posting references

Reference documents would certainly be good to have. My understanding of the VO philosophy is to rely on taxonomies instead of a hierarchical structure for the objects in the repository. That is, we should think about how to tag the documents so that they are easy to find and browse within a category. I.e., what's important is not that they were presented on day 1 in a particular meeting, but that they deal with a particular aspect of assurance case development.

sushilkbirla
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Do we have the right taxonomy?
Good to hear from you, Oleg. Do we have the right taxonomy?
Oleg Sokolsky
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No, we don't

Hi Suhil! There is a taxonomy button at the upper right corner. I checked just now, it is empty. So, to answer your question, obviously, we don't have the right one. When setting up the medical VO group, I was forced to come up with one. I believe we should do the same here. Let us all suggest some categories. I can then put it in, since I've done it before. Assuming I have the right privileges here, which I probably do not.

sushilkbirla
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Taxonomy for "Assurance Cases"
Oleg: Let us work on getting the right taxonomy agreed upon. Then, some authorized person can put it in place. A taxonomy should not only have key words, but also relationships among them. Do you have a reference for review? If so, is it uploadable as a file viewable in the cps-vo directly or in some MS Office tool?
Mike Waterman
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Taxonomy suggestion
Given the regulatory aspect of these discussions, I suggest two of the upper level categories for binning articles could be 1) Developing Assurance/Safety Cases, and 2) Evaluating Assurance/Safety Cases. These categories have common topics (e.g., what is an Assuance case?), and unique topics (e.g., given an Assurance case, how can it be evaluated?). The linkage of common topics, as distinguished from unique topics could done through HTML links, or by binning common topics in a Common topic category.
jonespl
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Reference documents

Yes! I would like people to post reference documents.

And no, I don't know how best to collect them. What we need is a "reference" folder.

Chris may be able to help us here as well....

Chris vanBuskirk
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I have created a third

I have created a third taxonomy called "ACRG: Files", which currently contains only one term or 'folder' named "References". If you navigate to that folder from the [Files] menu button, you should be presented with an "Upload" widget on the right-hand column of the screen.

sushilkbirla
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Leaving the forum
I have to go to some meetings - not likely to get back into the forum today. - Sushil
Weininger
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assurance case taxonomies

We have proposed the two taxonomy tags:

1) Developing Assurance/Safety Cases, and 2) Evaluating Assurance/Safety Cases.

What about breaking #1 into Methods for Doing (or a more elegant term) and Templates.

A subtag? under #2 ( Evaluating) would have use cases - manufacturer, regulator, purchaser (hdo) and acceptance criteria (when is a safety/effectiveness/assurance case acceptable)

sushilkbirla
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Could not understand "use cases" in an assurance case taxonomy
Sandy: I could not understand the suggestion of the term, "use cases" in an assurance case taxonomy structure. Are you thinking in terms of a structure of a table of contents rather than a taxonomy?
sushilkbirla
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Taxonomy terms: Creation; Evaluation; Criteria
Perhaps we should re-visit the terms, "Developing Assurance/Safety Cases", and "Evaluating Assurance/Safety Cases" and shorten these terms to: Creation; Evaluation. Then, the term, "Criteria" is directly related to the term, "Evaluation."
Mike Waterman
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Shortening the terms works
Shortening the terms works for me. I'd opt to go for the verb forms (ings) instead of the noun forms (ations) because the verb forms are active voice. Also, use of "Developing" may be more in line with the audience's domain, as the word "Creating" is seldom used by system developers (vs system creators) and system evaluators. Even shorter, the verbs Develop and Evaluate.
sushilkbirla
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Taxonomy for assurance cases
The terms Develop Evaluate are even better.
sushilkbirla
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Taxonomy for "Assurance Cases"
Some suggestions for additional terms in the taxonomy Loss (a generalization of "harm") Safety (e.g. freedom from harm) Safety goal (a safety case should demonstrate that this is satisifed) Hazard (potential for loss) Hazard identification (aka hazard recognition)
Chris vanBuskirk
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Hi guys.  I added myself to

Hi guys. I added myself to your group, so I could quickly prototype the discussion so far. (hope you don't mind)

sushilkbirla
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Taxonomy, topic, keyword
Glad you are here, Chris. Help me understand the relationship among Taxonomy (I see a blank in the ACRG). Topic at the cps-vo level Topic in ACRG Keywords in ACRG
admin
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I'll try.   :-)   1) I think

I'll try. :-)

1) I think I see three questions here. The first question confuses me. Do you mean that you see no taxonomies for the ACRG group "today", or that you didn't see any "yesterday" [and haven't looked again yet today]?

2) As for "Topics", here is the vision for the normal operating mode (however, there is no strictly enforced rule about how groups choose to organize their various taxonomies). Firstly, there is a "Topics" taxonomy that does not belong to any group. It lays out at a high level what are the major thrusts and concerns that are relevant for the general "cyber-physical systems" community at large. At some point, in that general taxonomy, you come upon a leaf node, however. Secondly, it is up to certain "Special Interest Groups" to further sub-divide and formalize what are the important abstractions under their particular area of expertise. The naming convention typically chosen is "${Grp}: Topics", where ${Grp} is the 'short name' for that particular group. Am I making sense yet?

3) Finally, in addition to your topics taxonomy, I created an example of a 'folksonomy' called "ACRG: keywords". The difference between a 'taxonomy' and a 'folksonomy' is that group members have the ability to arbitrarily add new keywords to the folksonomy, as opposed to taxonomies which may only be defined/edited by your group's "manager(s)".

* BTW, I have no illusions that what I created is exactly what you want. I just wanted to get something concrete out there, so we could begin this particular part of the discussion (i.e. the mechanics of taxonomy maintenance on the VO).

sushilkbirla
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No taxonomy visible in ACRG
I just clicked on the Taxonomy button at the top right, but did not see any entries.
sushilkbirla
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ACRG Taxonomy
With reference to your Q1: I sent you a screen shot a few minutes ago, Chris. I still do not see an ACRG taxonomy. If someone else is reading this post, could you please check and post here whether you see a taxonomy when you click on the taxonomy button on the ACRG page at the upper right (to the right of the buttons View and Edit).
sushilkbirla
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ACRG Taxonomy
Now I see some entries when I click on Taxonomy. On the ACRG Taxonomy page, when I click on "list terms" I see Develop Evaluate However, when I visited other groups: * Most groups did not have a taxonomy. * A couple of groups had taxonomies, but the structuring paradigm seemed to be a file-folder hierarchy.
sushilkbirla
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Distinction between Taxonomy and Keywords
With reference to your Point #3, Chris, I understand that the taxonomy has adminstrative controls, but keywords can be added by group members. It seems that a keyword might eventually be a candidate extension to the taxonomy. When the group adminstration agrees to do so: (1) Would you remove the term from the Keyword list? (2) Does the change affect prior postings, e.g render them inconsistent in some manner?
Chris vanBuskirk
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Hi guys.  Sorry, I've been on

Hi guys. Sorry, I've been on vacation for a few days. Yes, that is the idea of how it should work, with the additional feature that terms may be easily 'migrated' from one taxonomy to another with a simple point and click interface

sushilkbirla
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ACRG taxonomy
With reference to your point #2, Chris: I see a general cps-vo wide taxonomy on the cps-vo repositories page (http://cps-vo.org/file_browser) as a list of topics: cps domains; cps technologies; education; foundations; science policy; research program overview. Is this intended to be the general taxonomy for all cps-vo groups?
admin
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I would have phrased it

I would have phrased it differently. It is intended to be the general taxonomy for all cps-vo content. You may use it to tag content within your group(s), as well.

sushilkbirla
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ACRG taxonomy
Other suggestions: Safety requirement (contributes to or is a part of a safety goal; typical ways: to eliminate a hazard; to avoid a hazard; to mitigate a hazard; to monitor a hazard). Claim (with respect to some safety goal or requirement) Argument (logical integration of evidence to support some claim) Evidence (contributes towards supporting some claim). Verification (creates some evidence). Verb form: verify. Validation (creates some other evidence). Verb form: Validate. Verification coverage; coverage gap; coverage uncertainty.

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