Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space: The case for Studas1

R. J. JORNA

Introduction Support of various kinds of tasks by all kinds of software is standard practice in organizations and companies. A very important task is the decision-making task. The area within computer science and information science, dealing with decisions, is called `decision support systems' or DSS. Sometimes this support is extended to include knowledge, resulting in knowledge-based decision support systems. In most decision support the emphasis is on calculation and computation. It is often argued that this kind of support is always necessary to make a choice. In many situations, however, the problem in decision making is not only the execution of calculations, but rather the adequate representation of an initial situation. This perspective on decision making makes interpretation, sense making, and the attachment of meaning essential. The decision situation that I will discuss concerns a student facing the decision problem of whether and how to continue his present studies. The decision-making process and the nal choice strongly depend on the interpretation of all kinds of information by the student. Support of this process with the help of standard decision support tools does not work. This does not mean that support is not possible. However, the approach to develop this kind of decision support has to change. It has to change from a calculus strategy into a semiotic strategy. The creation of meaning in the form of an internal and dynamic knowledge space has to be supported. I will describe the ideas behind the decision support system Studas (STUDent Assistance System), a software tool that is instrumental in self-reection and self-clarication. The semiotic stance facilitated the development of Studas, because within semiotics the dynamic and representational character of signs is a point of departure. The process of grasping meanings and making interpretations constitutes the beginning of a decision-making task. Support of this part of the decision-making process eases the transition from information to knowledge and, therefore, also increases the speed of understanding.
Semiotica 1331/4 (2001), 97119 00371998/01/0133 0097 # Walter de Gruyter

98 R. J. Jorna The decision-making process Although for all human beings decision making is a continuous process, not all decisions and decision situations are equally dicult. Several distinctions can be made related, rst, to the situation in which the decision is made, second, to the individual that makes the decision and, third, to the process of decision making itself. Concerning the situation, the dimensions may not be clear or the alternatives may not be formulated. Decision situations range from the decision to realize a benign death to small decision cycles such as choosing the nger with which a certain character on the keyboard is typed. With regard to humans as cognitive systems, an individual has all kinds of cognitive constraints and biases that lter the situation and inuence the decision-making process. Concerning the process, a decision may be repetitive or unique, dependent upon other decisions, or separate, and automatic or conscious. Within the decisionmaking process also several phases can be discerned. In this article, I will focus on the phases in the decision process. Sometimes it is argued that decision making itself is part of problem solving. This approach can be found in the AI-program SOAR, where decision cycles are used to model the process of problem solving (Newell 1990). The problem that I will discuss in this article is neither the choice for euthanasia nor the small decision cycles that we continuously make. The decision problem that I will discuss, here, is in the middle range with respect to complexity and importance. The problem relates to the choice for the continuation of a course of study or career. This is a choice problem that every individual faces at least once in his life, and many people face it more often. Although a choice for a certain study or occupation may have been made, it is often the case that after a short time the student or employee has the insight that he or she is not happy with the situation. Then, a new decision situation has to be faced. I will take this problem as an example to illustrate aspects of the decision-making process. This will be done in this section. In the next section, I will discuss various aspects of the study choice situation in greater detail. The question in the background is what kind of decision support is available and eective in facing the issue of whether and how to continue a course of study, a career, or a profession. Vlek and Wagenaar (1976) state that
a decision situation exists when someone perceives a discrepancy between an existing state the status quo and a desired state. Furthermore, one must have the motivation and the means to let the discrepancy disappear, whereas the chosen pattern of actions must require an unreturnable investment of action possibilities and, nally, the consequences of every choice alternative must be partially or totally uncertain (1976: 448, my translation).

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 99 The perceived discrepancy between an existing state and a desired state requires a description and an evaluation of the various states by a decision maker. The problem is that in many situations neither the desired state nor the existing (initial) state is adequately specied. Concerning the motivation it is often the case that people do not want to face a decision problem as such. Some students may think that time will decide for them, and a frequently used way of dealing with a decision problem is not to make a decision. In the end these students may be right, but the price is always that a comparison with what one really wanted cannot be made. A third problematic aspect in decision making is that means have to be present to eectuate the path from the existing to the desired state. This implies that students need to have some general idea about their capabilities, resources, and achievements. Often this situation is not realized. In the study continuation situation the two other characteristics of the decision problem do hold. That is to say that going in a certain direction or, as it sometimes happens, abstaining from making a decision, is mostly an irreversible process. Choosing certain topics and subjects implies the exclusion of other topics. Undoing directions one has chosen is often not possible. The same holds for the uncertainty aspect. A choice for a course of study is a decision under uncertainty. This can even go as far as that a student does not have any idea of probabilities and possibilities of the realization of a certain choice. This makes the decision problem of whether and how to continue certain studies a very hard one. The complicating aspect in the study continuation situation is that a choice made directly inuences the information and knowledge of the decision maker. One is playing around with oneself. In the famous model of decision making, proposed by Herbert Simon (1960), three phases in the decision making process are discerned: (a) the intelligence phase, (b) the design phase, and (c) the choice phase (see Figure 1). According to Simon these phases are present and necessary in every decision-making process and in every decision situation. The intelligence phase relates to the gathering of information. In order to start a decision process an individual has to look around for information. This not only implies the well-documented and `easy-to-get' information in books, newspapers, brochures, and other documents, but also the information about where to get information. Having the information in a book is at best half way in the intelligence phase. If a student in the middle of his rst year has to make a choice of whether and how to continue the course of study, part of the rst phase of intelligence is that the student realizes that somewhere in the future a choice has to be made. A mental model has to be created. This mental model is not stable, but changes continuously. The phase of intelligence is also very dicult to quantify.

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Figure 1. Simon's decision phases (Simon 1960: 54). The new science of management decision making. New York: Harper and Brothers

The design phase is related to the determination of the variables, the dimensions, the parameters, and the alternatives after all information gathering and information seeking has momentarily been stopped. In the study example it may mean that according to the student there may only be two options, continuing the course of study with which he started or switching to a course of study at another department. However, it is realistic to take into account that the student may leave the university and start something else. This alternative course of action may have a nearly zero probability for the student; the design phase implies that this possibility is taken into account. The choice phase is about the selection of an option and its implementation and realization. This phase often includes the computation and weighting of the various variables in the alternatives. It also includes the issue of styles and strategies of decision making. From what is known in the decision-making literature this phase almost always means the application of (complicated) mathematical operations. In the case of the study choice it means that a student, given the alternatives and given the parameters, should be able to calculate an optimal, or at least a satisfying, outcome.

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 101 The characteristics of decision making, as dened by Vlek and Wagenaar, and the phases of decision making by Simon show that support of decision making in the sense that it is one complex but uniform task, may be an illusion. Decision making is a labyrinth, constituted out of various sub-tasks and requiring a mixture of mental activities for which the development of one kind of support tool may be an illusion. The question, therefore, becomes: what kind of support is suitable for what kind of activity, phase, or sub-task? Study (re)orientation: The formulation of a decision problem As indicated in the foregoing section the decision situation that is highlighted in this article is the question of whether and how to continue a course of study or a career. In the remainder of this section I focus on the study situation. Nevertheless this situation can clearly be generalized to the question of whether and how to continue jobs and careers. The orientation is the Netherlands, but many elements are applicable to other countries. It becomes more and more clear that the rather xed order of study, domain of labor, and occupation or vocation that existed in the past is disappearing. In the recent past one studied medicine because one was interested in the domain of health care and at a certain moment one became a doctor and remained that for the rest of one's life. This was the situation for many occupations in many countries in the world (at least in Europe), from doctor, lawyer, and teacher to milkman, shoemaker, and truck driver. The last couple of years this situation is rapidly changing for many occupations. Even doctors are not practicing their whole life. They become hospital managers, physicians controlling those who are incapacitated for work, or even teachers. The same holds for truck drivers, sales managers, and production personnel. This means that occupations appear on the scene and disappear again. Professions change and so do the required skills and study trajectories. In the Netherlands, for example, this situation has been complicated by the fact that the period of an educational grant to study at a university (scholarship) has been reduced from six or seven years to four years, including a strong pressure to acquire a minimal amount of credits in a year. At the same time universities and higher vocational institutions oer new and promising topics and disciplines. There are of course many dierences per country, but the main tendencies are clear. Students do not study for one occupation any more. For money and loan reasons they experience the pressure to take as little time as possible to nish a course of study.

102 R. J. Jorna At this moment I want to make one thing clear. It is not my intention to approve or disapprove of this situation. The situation is more or less as described and it seems that this development will continue. It will continue in such a way that life is not subdivided into separate phases, in which learning and studying come before earning money and occupying a profession for many years. Studying and learning are activities that one has to take up for some period of time every couple of years. In jargon this is called `life long learning'. Take for example a student who is at the end of his secondary school and has to make a decision about the continuation of his studies, implicitly related to a profession and a job. At a certain moment and due to the pressure of the start of the curriculum a choice is made, for example to study at the Faculty of Management and Organization at the University of Groningen. Normally, the year starts in September and consists of three trimesters. In the Netherlands graduation of the secondary school gives unrestricted access to university or higher vocational studies, provided that an adequate level of examination topics in secondary education has been chosen. However, the selection for university continuation is very hard in the rst year. Although many students have to make a decision, it is very well known that many of them are not sure about their rst choice. In some studies the drop out rate in the rst year is more than 3040%. In medicine this percentage is lower, whereas in some arts studies it is higher. To be clear this 3040% is not the percentage of students that fail to pass their rst year. The percentage is only related to students who switched, failed some examinations but passed others, had personal problems, and experienced a lack of motivation. There are many reasons for students in their rst year to be uncertain. They start a new life, away from their parents, they make new friends, and they have to realize a new attitude toward studies and learning in general. What can be seen is that after a couple of months in the rst year many students have doubts whether they made the right choice. They ask themselves questions about the continuation of their studies. This not only applies to those that got low grades, but also to those that got high grades. For scholarship reasons this situation becomes critical around February or March of the rst year. A decision has to be made concerning continuation or change. The problem is that if they want to change or switch, the possibilities are unclear and so are the preferences and constraints. This general decision situation is dierent for every individual, with dierent interpretations and dierent representations. In classical terms the student has a decision problem, in which the alternatives are continuously changing and in which the student does not know what he wants and sometimes even does not

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 103 know what he does not want. In semiotic terms one might say that the student is lost in information space (Boisot 1995). If we do not presuppose that knowledge is equal to wisdom and if we dene knowledge as interpreted information, we can say that the student does not have a knowledge space. Given the above situation the problem is: what is eective support for (these) students and how can this support be realized? In the recent past, support consisted of brochures, information bulletins, talks with faculty teachers and fellow students, family, and friends. Sometimes even assessment tests are taken. This situation is rapidly changing for two reasons. In the rst place, because the elegance of software tools, such as decision support systems, is increasing. In the second place, because right now much information is digitally available from the Internet. Therefore, one should expect that digital support possibilities are abundantly available. In fact, this is the case, but the kind of available decision support does not t the questions many students are dealing with. I think that there are three reasons for this mismatch. First, there may be an incorrect perspective of the importance of the various phases in decision making. Secondly, software support is only available for quantitative aspects of decision making. Thirdly, although students as decision makers are information processing systems, an adequate perspective on information handling, interpretation, and sense making is lacking. In the following sections I will discuss the three reasons in more detail. In the next section I will discuss the phases of decision making in relation to the software that has been developed for these phases. Following that I will give semiotic arguments concerning why existing software support does not match the important phase of intelligence. Then I will discuss the Studas instrument that we developed in order to support the phase of intelligence, and after that I will give a rst impression of the use of Studas. Finally, I will indicate, as a consequence, why new areas of psychology should be developed for information handling, and why semiotics is of relevance, here. Phases in decision-making and decision support tools Several models have been developed over the last forty years to assess the steps for support in the decision-making process. One of the most inuential is the model of Edwards (1971), in which eight steps are discerned. The approach is called SMART, that is to say the `Simple MultiAttribute Rating Technique'. The steps are consecutively: (1) identify the decision maker, (2) identify the alternatives, (3) identify the attributes that are relevant for the decision, (4) measure the performance of the alternatives

104 R. J. Jorna for every attribute, (5) determine the weight of every attribute, (6) calculate for every alternative a weighted sum of the values for that alternative, (7) make a provisional decision, and (8) perform a sensitivity analysis. In the study example some steps are realistic, whereas it can also be easily seen that other steps are not possible. The rst step relates to the decision maker, which is the student. The second step is about the alternatives, and let us suppose that the student is able to indicate the following alternatives: continuation, switch of course of study to another subject, for example, from management to law, or switch of course of study to a lower level, from a university-level management to a higher vocational-level management study. The third step already brings about many diculties. Some attributes can be determined and described, but many cannot. Because of the impossibility to take step three, steps four and further are impossible. The conclusion has to be that SMART, as it is, is not applicable to the study situation. One might argue that this is also the case in many other real life decision situations and that in these cases determinations and estimations of relevant attributes have to be forced. The same should apply to the study choice. The problem, however, is that many students do not really have any idea of what the remainder of the course of study and the profession, job, or occupation they want, look like. For that reason the determination of dimensions and alternatives prematurely stops. If we compare the phases of Simon with SMART, we see that the eight steps relate to the phases of design and choice. SMART does not really take into account the intelligence phase. This ts very well the ideas formulated by Herbert Simon about bounded rationality (Simon 1969). One of the main themes in Simon's work is that in decision making one could also say in problem solving in general humans want to decide in a rational way, but are limited by several factors: cognitive architecture, representations, and external context. First, we are limited by our cognitive architecture and capabilities. Our memory system is limited, as are our processing capabilities. We may try as hard as we want, but we cannot change our own architectural constraints. Our Short Term Memory (STM) has to work with the magical number seven and in our Long Term Memory (LTM) it takes more than just milliseconds to retrieve relevant and important information. Secondly, our cognitive system is not only limited by the architecture. We also use various (subjective) mental representations. Representations are what we live by, but they are limited in the sense that we interpret, evaluate, verbalize, depict, and imagine them dierently. By the way of representations we create dierent subjective models of the world. Thirdly, we are also limited by the constraints of the organization or the institution we live in, of which we are a part. This may be relevant in

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 105 the sense of explicit codes and habits, but is much more inuential in the so called invisible `codes'. Students in university and higher vocational studies are biased by the topics and departments they are familiar with. For example, in management studies it is highly unusual to start a dissertation project. Most students do not even think about it, whereas in some parts of physics a dissertation is obligatory if one wants a career in physics. These customs are not written down, but they exist. The context opens and blocks possibilities. Although it seems that the constraints imposed by the architecture are more rigid, people in decision situations are as much aected by their mental representations and by the organizations they live in. The term `bounded rationality' that Simon uses does not imply that people are not rational. This is often misunderstood. Simon used the notion of bounded rationality to criticize economists who think that people can only be completely rational or not rational at all. This discussion is based on the notion of the `homo economicus'. However, people are always rational, because they want to achieve certain (subjective and short term) goals with available means. This means that they are rational to a certain degree. Because of this bounded rationality in decision situations, Simon (1947 [1976]) says that knowledge of consequences is always fragmentary. Furthermore, values can only imperfectly be anticipated and most of the times only a very few of all the possible alternatives come to mind. Besides, people often use simplied models of the world and are the creators of their own representations. However, they are limited by these representations. The question is whether and how these limitations in decision making can be supported. Many decision support tools have been developed the last ten years. Initially they originate from Management Information Systems (MIS) (Davis and Olson 1985). The rst generation of decision support systems mainly consisted of statistical and mathematical programs, with which prospects, predictions, and forecasts could be investigated. Expert Choice (Figure 2) and 4Thought are two of the many programs that incorporate techniques with which one can calculate probabilities and alternatives. In the example of Expert Choice a goal is set, for example an appropriate treatment for breast cancer. Several aspects of the various dimensions, alternatives, and sub-goals can be formulated. After that a probability estimation can be made and a best choice can be calculated. The numbers in the example of breast cancer (Figure 2) are ctitious, they are only meant to illustrate the kind of choice support. The support these kinds of tools give is mainly limited to computation and calculation. One should not underestimate this kind of support. It is very important that this kind of support is available. The main

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Figure 2. Calculation of probabilities and alternatives in Expert Choice 8 (Decision Support Software of Expert Choice Inc.): www.expertchoice.com

precondition, however, is that the alternatives, dimensions, variables, and values are explicit. Although this may often be the case, in the example of study choice the situation is quite dierent. The question, therefore, is: what is possible if the support that is requested is not related to mathematical and statistical models in which alternatives and variables are clear, measurable, and quantiable? What kind of support is suitable in this case, and which conceptual framework may give an orientation to develop this kind of support tool? Sense making, semiotics, and the support of interpretation The phases in decision making that Simon uses already give a rst orientation toward a conceptual framework. The decision-making phase that needs software support is the phase of intelligence. This phase consists of such various activities as information gathering, dening information needs, sense making, interpreting, reecting, and comparing (Choo 1998). Central in all these activities is that people and in this specic case, students have to build up mental models, have to question aspects of these mental models, and have to change or adjust these mental models. If we talk in terms that are derived from Boisot (1995), the students have to construct a knowledge space, have to navigate through this knowledge space, and have to choose directions with the help of this knowledge space. In the past, support in this kind of modeling consisted of brochures, folders, and books. This situation has dramatically changed because of the availability of abundant sources of information on the Internet. The Studas instrument that we developed is based on access to the Internet.

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 107 However, having access to the Internet is only a small part of the solution to the issues of information needs, sense making, and interpreting. It is also necessary to use conceptual structures in which the support is embedded. Two frameworks are used in the Studas case. The rst is related to students as information-processing systems. If a student looks for, interprets, and evaluates information, he or she is executing all kinds of mental operations. As a decision maker or a problem solver a student is a cognitive system, using his/her cognitive architecture to execute cognitive operations on mental representations. The mental representations themselves consist of symbols, which make cognitive processing a kind of symbol processing. This means that the framework of cognitive psychology is relevant to describe activities in the intelligence phase. The second is related to the fact that the student is absorbing information, that is to say that all kinds of signs and sign combinations are collected and assimilated by the student. This is the more relevant because information seeking and information use is realized digitally, in this case with access to the Internet. Therefore, sign formation, external sign processing, and sign combination are important aspects of support in the intelligence phase. The conclusion concerning this framework has to be that whether we are talking about sense making and thinking or about external information, signs are essential ingredients. The problem is that no connection yet exists between information handling, semiotics, and `intelligence' support. The conceptual framework of semiotics is itself not new, but it has not often been applied to a combination of decision making and decision support. The support perspective I will sketch is that of a student who has to interpret signs and symbols from various environments in order to give meaning to questions for which he does not know the relevance to his situation. As a human information-processing system the student is in the process of semiosis. The system we developed as a decision support instrument for the intelligence phase is Studas: STUDy Assistance System (van Kampen 1998). It is based on concepts that are borrowed from the elds of decision support (Numan 1998), cognitive psychology (Norman 1988, 1993), knowledge management, and semiotics (among others, Charles Morris 1938). Studas: An instrument to create a knowledge space As already indicated, the decision process of a rst year student contemplating his future possibilities is not a nicely structured decision

108 R. J. Jorna situation. The situation is vague; often the student does not know what he wants or even what he does not want, the information is scattered and dicult to obtain and judge, and possibilities are dependent upon earlier steps. In terms of decision making the decision is multi-layered, it consists of many smaller decisions, it has no well-dened initial state nor a welldened goal state, and, in general, estimations of opportunities are not present. In terms of semiotics one might say that the student executes processes of semiosis combining all kinds of signs and symbols, internally as well as externally, into a mental representation. What is important is that the process of semiosis will result in actions. Given the fact that support has to be provided for a student as a human information-processing system in constructing a momentary and dynamic knowledge space, Studas has to fulll the following requirements. First, because every student is dierent, every knowledge space is unique, not only for every student, but also for the same student at dierent times. Second, because situations continuously change, Studas has to be extremely dynamic. No xed set of information is presented at xed moments. Third, because the absence of any structure may cause a student to feel lost in knowledge space, some identication structure must be available, but only on request. Fourth, because a student may need a possibility to compare him/herself with other students, a frame of reference has to be provided. All these specications are captured in Studas. The student chooses a role model, the student may request any information that may be relevant at any time, the history of a student may be saved, comparisons with other students are provided, but only on request, and the time spent and the time period to work with Studas are self paced. I will discuss the several aspects in detail below. Central in Studas are three elements: (1) the map or layout, (2) the role model, and (3) the self-pacing and self-directing of the use of information. First, the map represents the information space in which the student moves around (Figure 3). For the student the information results in a knowledge space. The map consists of interrelations between four basic questions: (a) Who am I? (b) What is there? (c) What do I want? and (d) How? Each of these questions is represented as a box that consists of many modules also represented in the form of boxes, dealing with several aspects of the main questions. Second, the role model is meant to personalize the analysis (Figure 4). Every student has the possibility to identify him/herself. This means that although dierent people make decisions in dierent ways, some typology can be provided. Various decision making strategies are known from literature (Goodwin and Wright 1991), indicating an emotional

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Figure 3. The map or layout of Studas. Every box represents a possible information source. From Studas, 1999, developed by Faculty of Management and Organization. University of Groningen

decision maker, a rational decision maker, or a condent decision maker. The student chooses his/her own role model, which gives an identication for situation, achievements, past, present, and future. Third, the self-pacing and self-directing means that the student is in control of time, duration, and information, but is also able to hand over part of the control of the support process to the program. At any moment the student can take back the control. I will now shortly discuss the various options and aspects of Studas. After a small introduction and an explanation of the program, the student nds himself at the point where he has to decide upon a role model (see Figure 4). Six possible roles can be chosen. An example is the decision maker without outspoken interests. In this case a student is rather indierent toward a lot of possibilities. Furthermore, there are the rational decision maker, the decision maker who already knows for sure, the hesitating decision maker, the decision maker who has the perspective of an occupation, and, nally, the technician, indicating someone who is excellent in the science topics, but does not know what he or she wants to be. Whatever role model is chosen is not important, it is only meant

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Figure 4. Six role models representing six dierent kinds of decision-making styles. From Studas, 1999, developed by Faculty of Management and Organization. University of Groningen

to place oneself on the dimension of decision-making strategies. It may be expected that each of the roles has a certain connection with the relative importance of boxes on the map. For example, a student who considers himself to be a technician will not wander around for a long time in the Who am I? module. However, he may want to. This is a matter of further (empirical) investigation. The choice of a role model has no further consequences for the path through the program. It only helps in identication and reection. The role model is followed by an option in which the student may choose several directions, such as continuation of the course of study, swapping over to a subject at the same level or to a completely dierent level, and looking for something completely dierent. The next part of the program is the map, or, one might say, the information space. This part consists of four main modules, the boxes with bold text. There is no specic order to go through the modules. The rst module is the Identication module, formulated in the question Who am I? The second module is the Goal Direction module, formulated in the question What do I Want? The third module is the External Orientation module,

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 111 in terms of What is there? Figure 5 presents part of this module. Finally, there is the Realization module, in terms of How? Each module consists of several sub-modules. These are the other boxes on the map in Figure 3. The Identication module consists of the sub-modules: Context, Constraints, Skills, Capabilities, and Experience. The sub-modules are all constructed in the same way. For example, in `Capabilities', the student is explained what capabilities mean. It is also possible to give an opinion about capabilities in free text in a text box. This information is stored and can later be retrieved. Additionally, there is the possibility to give an opinion about several statements, such as `At the moment I have the following capabilities: planning, organizing, quick problem recognition, etc.' It is also possible to ll in marks on dierent topics, the so-called study performance. In this way it is possible to compare oneself with other students. Information can be requested about (average) students that are comparable, better, or worse. This information has been collected by interviewing student counselors. The program does not

Figure 5. View of the multi-functional database. A combination of occupational domains and labor types. From Studas, 1999, developed by Faculty of Management and Organization, University of Groningen

112 R. J. Jorna give advice. The evaluation and judgement have to be done by the student working with Studas. The Goal Direction module consists of the sub-modules: Appreciation, Interests, Likes and Dislikes, and Goals. In the Likes and Dislikes submodule the student receives some information about the relevance of this aspect. Then he is asked to enter a set of open and closed questions. The answers given are stored and can be viewed in the map screen as overviews. The External Orientation module consists of several forms of information. The information is related to general salaries of people with an academic degree, to the various study routes within a discipline, and to the salaries and perspectives related to each route. It is also possible to connect to other programs related to the world of occupations and professions. These programs are called `Trajectory' and `View on Occupations'. In this module of External Orientation the student can ask him/ herself questions that are related to the dimensions of `Occupational Domain' and `Labor Type' (see Figure 5). The resulting matrix consists of N cells. The structure (or ontology) that is underlying this matrix has been developed by LDC in the Netherlands. If a student chooses logistics as the type of labor and food as the occupational domain, he gets a cell with which he can go to (vocational) training programs and perspectives on occupations. In combination with what the student already knows from the Goal Orientation and the Identication module he is informed about possible continuations. He has created his own representation of his possibilities. In semiotic terms the information space has changed into a knowledge space. The Realization module consists of the sub-modules: Choice, Planning, Execution, and Continuation. In the sub-module Choice the student is asked to make a preliminary decision in the sense that on the basis of many options that have been tried and many routes and directions that have been investigated, a direction is becoming clear. The student is asked to put his decision into words. Several tools are available to help him with this. One such a tool is the allocation of `pluses and minuses'. Given two options the alternatives can be compared in terms of advantages and disadvantages. After moving around within and among all the modules and submodules with open and closed questions and questionnaires, the student has created a knowledge space for himself or herself. This knowledge space only exists in the mind of the student, but may afterwards be partially reconstructed from the routes that the student examined. In the end a student may print the information that is relevant. Furthermore, the program is designed in such a way that the student can always see where he has been. He can go to overviews, but may also try some sub-modules

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 113 again and again. This is a very important aspect of the program. The structure of the program is not constraining the user in terms of speed, direction, and orientation. In the perspective of Studas constraints do not belong to the phase of intelligence. Several principles are behind the development of Studas. The rst says that students have to take their own responsibility. In the second place, Studas focuses on analysis and reection and not on advice. In the third place, Studas gives the opportunity to identify and to mirror; it does not prescribe. In working with Studas, students are talking about themselves, not about others. In the fourth place, and in terms of Laurel (1986), Studas is rst-person and not third-person oriented. On the other hand, it is situation and person independent. The only context required is the context of the course of study the student is following at the moment of working with Studas. Studas fullls the need for information without giving much structuration. However, it gives structuration on request. It helps those students who have no clearly dened problem to start with. Their perspective changes during the process of moving around in information space leading to dierent realizations of a knowledge space. The dynamic, preliminary, and subjective character of the knowledge space requires an open program. Most students have no experience with study and career choices. The paradoxical situation with many decision support programs, therefore, is that, on the one hand, a student needs this kind of analysis with decision support at a moment in which he is not capable of using this support, whereas, on the other hand, if a student is capable of using this support, he does not need it anymore. The reason for this paradox is that most decision support programs support the wrong phase in decision making. If information for the determination of dimensions and alternatives is missing, support for the design and choice phase is superuous. Studas is meant to prevent the occurrence of the paradox. The information that many students need is so obsolete, opaque, and badly structured that a transformation from information space to knowledge space is not a one-to-one depiction. The structuring has to be actively done by the student. Information that is meaningful for a student, changes the disposition to act. This is not a closed and unique process, it happens continuously, meaning that a student is in a process of semiosis all the time. He has to rephrase his starting problem, his interpretation of this problem, his representation of what he already knows, and he has to use dierent kinds of information and signs to integrate and understand this. In the end, after working with Studas he also has to be able to present his knowledge space in clear words to friends, family and, if necessary, to the student counselor.

114 R. J. Jorna The use of the Studas system Studas is developed to be used on the Internet. Students from a department that has bought Studas are allowed to enter Studas. It should be noted that every version of Studas consists of general information and information that is specic for the topics and subjects in a faculty. Besides that, there are links to all kinds of external information. In this sense a context is automatically present. A student studying Law is not interested in information from the Management Department, at least not at the start of Studas. In working with Studas, the Law student may at a certain moment want to have information about the program of Management Science. This is possible, because in working with Studas the student has created for him or herself a new context in which new information becomes relevant. The program itself is written in HTML, ASP (Active Server Pages), and Script languages (Java scripts and Visual Basic scripts), and works within Netscape Navigator 3 and higher. Six dierent versions of the program have been developed. That is to say that specic information of six dierent study programs has been implemented in Studas. The study programs are Management Science at the University of Groningen, Management Science at Rotterdam University, Psychology at the University of Groningen, Management Informatics, Mechanical Engineering, and Economics at the HanzeSchool for Higher Vocational Training in Groningen. The reason for the diversity is that we wanted to see whether the content specic information related to university and higher vocational studies could be easily and quickly integrated into a kind of general format. The experiences were very positive, indicating a general applicability of Studas. In the following some results of working with Studas are presented. Detailed discussion of results can be found in van Kampen (1998) and in Jorna and van Kampen (1999). The test was performed with 92 students from six dierent training programs. They participated on a voluntary basis and they received a small fee for their participation. The sessions were done in a parallel way, that is to say that several students worked with Studas at the same time. The most clear result was that most students indicated a decrease in uncertainty regarding their future possibilities. It is not that they said that everything was clear now, but they were able to indicate and partially formulate their own knowledge space. This is the result of the presented information and their interpretation of their existing self image on the basis of mental representations. Dierences between the various studies or training programs were not found. Most students indicated that the role model was very eective. It helped them to be tuned to the decision process that they were about to enter.

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 115 The identication and reection that we hoped Studas would accomplish was indeed realized. Furthermore, the self-pacing and self-directing was realized in the sense that some students only looked at some modules, whereas most others worked through all modules in the most detailed sense. The average time spent in working with Studas was one and a half hours. Some students were ready after 30 minutes, but many students worked with Studas for more than two and a half hours (150 minutes). Many students spent a lot of time in the module of External Orientation. This conrms the basic idea that students need information to build up their knowledge space. Not only do they not know what there is and what they want, they also do not know what they do not want because of a lack of information that may exclude possibilities. The students highly appreciated the sub-modules of Experience, Skills, and Capabilities within Identication and Interests in Goal Orientation. Furthermore, the possibility to track the history of working with the program was very much welcomed. The students did not really like most of the sub-modules within the Execution module, such as Planning (including time management), Choice, and Constraints. This may be an indication of the possible success of the program, because the development was started from the perspective that many people do not like to be confronted with prescriptive support programs, especially when a knowledge space is lacking. However, it is too early to be conclusive about these results. What was dierent from what we expected was that the open text boxes were evaluated very positively. Students used these possibilities very often and to a large extent. Our explicit goal to support mirroring, reection, and information evaluation was realized with Studas. Finally, all students indicated that playing around with the matrix of domains of occupation and types of labor leading to all kinds of combinations about jobs and training programs was an enriching experience. It helped them in constructing a self image. Information became knowledge because the students attached meaning to opportunities in their external environment. Conclusions and future developments Studas showed that extensive support without much calculation is possible and eective. In decision making, Studas supported information gathering, sense making, and interpretation. Within an information space a decision maker could construct a knowledge space, implying that information without interpretation is meaningless. The rst phase of decision making consists of the construction of internal representations related to the decision-making situation. Studas supports this phase by

116 R. J. Jorna oering interaction without a limiting structure and by oering the possibility of a dynamic mirror. Studas shows that a fruitful combination of decision support, semiotics, and information handling can be realized. However, it also shows that the issue of information handling deserves much more (research) attention within computer science in general and decision support systems in particular. The development of Studas is illustrative for the state of the art in information and computer science. Much eort is put in the support of mathematical and computational tasks. To be clear: I do not want to belittle this kind of support. It is necessary, most of the time elegant, and often very powerful. However, and this cannot be emphasized enough, support is always meant to be used by human individuals. Although they may be conceived of as information processing systems, this processing is in many respects dierent from what goes on in computers. The interaction of humans and computers and the support of human tasks by computers requires another perspective than the one that is formulated in terms of computational or mathematical power. The emphasis in many tasks is on understanding, interpretation, sense making, and building up (complicated) mental representations. Because the representational and digital world around us is rapidly increasing, this implies a changing focus on issues of interpretation and representation. Two conceptual frameworks are relevant for these issues: semiotics and a psychology of information handling. The rst framework (semiotics) already exists but has to be adjusted, the second framework also exists but has to redirect its attention. The frameworks should be combined in what elsewhere is called a semio-psychology or a semio-psychology of information handling (Jorna and van Heusden 1998; Jorna 1999). The challenge for the near future is to develop such a semio-psychology. This is not the place to discuss a detailed research agenda, but some issues are the following. From a developmental perspective it is interesting to discuss in semiotic terms the question of how various signs come into being. This may include research questions such as what is the eect of dierent sign structures on various kinds of `intelligent' behavior and what kind of tools can be developed to analyze and judge emerging sign structures? Studas is an example of a system that supports the realization of a knowledge space. We, humans, are not yet adjusted to the emerging digital and virtual world of the future. This is a two-sided problem. It is caused by the devices and artifacts that are constructed around us and it is due to the fact that we have all kinds of inherent limitations that will not change. Concerning the devices and software, we demonstrated that support such as Studas can be realized, taking into account the fact that interpretation

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 117 and meaning are central elements in the rst phases of decision making. A semiotic perspective helps in the reorientation toward more adequate decision support. Semio-psychology including a psychology of information processing or handling is not the same as information processing psychology. The latter is a conceptual framework to study human thinking and reasoning, the former is a eld of attention related to the presentation of information, digitally, virtually, and representationally, to humans. A psychology of information handling may be achieved within the framework of information processing psychology, provided that semiotic assumptions are included. The question then is what are the semiotic presuppositions underlying most contemporary theories of cognition and information processing? It is possible to understand the apparent incompatibility of these approaches as a consequence of the position taken with regard to the semiotic process. Thus the `classical view' (GOFAI Good Old Fashioned AI) of the symbol systems hypothesis (Newell and Simon 1972), which is based on the assumption that cognition involves the manipulation of symbols, shares its semiotic presuppositions about the logic of representation with the logic-oriented semiotics of Peirce one of the founding fathers of semiotics. The sign process is understood, not in terms of an interaction between patterns and experience, but as an inferential procedure, which is, in principle, computable. Both ways of thinking about signs are, however, very incomplete. Precisely because the representational dimension, the `aboutness' of human semiosis is not taken into account, it is not dicult to predict that they will not tell us much about human semiosis. On the other hand, the limited syntactico-semantic approach underlying both perspectives explains at least in part their success in the AI-world. They have been fruitful, insofar as they deal with signs functioning in non-human environments: as patterns of activities found in organizations, machines, and animals. However, their strength has also been their handicap: they have never been able to take the step beyond the structure, into the realm of representation. That is the realm of human semiosis proper, and that is also the realm where explanations are sought for the nature of the structures described. So how can we summarize the gain of a semiotic perspective in the behavioral (or social) sciences, e.g., psychology and in more detail with regard to decision making as one of the most frequent human reasoning activities? First of all, semiotics brings into focus shared, but mostly hidden assumptions about the subject of much of behavioral science, that is, about the human as animal symbolicum. Whenever one deals with humans, be it in anthropology, economy, history, psychology, sociology, management

118 R. J. Jorna science, information science, cognitive science, or linguistics one deals with signs and semiosis. Nowadays the knowledge of this basic quality of humans, which presumably distinguishes them from all other organisms and machines, is quite often only dimly present in the mind of the researchers. What exactly is semiosis? What are these signs we use all the time, everywhere? Semiotics' rst, though certainly not its most important, function is a debunking one: we have to realize that one of our central concerns should be to acquire a more thorough knowledge of semiosis about which we say so much, yet know so little. A more important function of the semiotic perspective is to oer a possible common ground for the information sciences including the study of human behavior. Whether we are dealing with the information sciences, economics, or history, the basic structures and processes are always of a semiotic nature, and semiotics provides us with a number of basic concepts referring to the semiotic process. Semiotics, thus, generates a dialogue between the information sciences and the behavioral sciences insofar as they are dealing with that common subject: (human) semiosis. The questions that guide each semiotic analysis are: what can be said about the semiotic process? Who is `doing' the semiosis? Who is/are the sign user(s)? Who is involved in semiosis? What are the semiotic problems which have to be solved? How do they present themselves to the signusers? Which strategies are adopted? How do the forms (the signs) relate to these strategies, how do they t the functions they have to fulll? From a semiotic point of view signs are all around us. They always were and they will always be, but one thing changed dramatically the last twenty years and that is the speed of the manipulation of signs. This speed has confronted us with what is called an information overload. We, humans, have to develop new strategies in dealing with this ever increasing speed. There is less and less time to move around in information spaces and to construct knowledge spaces. One way of dealing with it is to acknowledge that the information space is not the same as the knowledge space. Not in general, but also not for the same individual at dierent moments. Knowledge means interpretation and representation. The lucky thing is that software, provided that it is developed from the perspective of sense making and interpretation, is a helpful instrument here, too. Studas exemplies this perspective with the epitaph: `Studas for a better choice'.

Note
1. Studas can be found on the Internet (in Dutch): www.studas.nl

Decision making, semiosis, and the knowledge space 119 References

Boisot, M. H. (1995). Information Space. London: Routledge. Choo, C. W. (1998). The Knowing Organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davis, G. B. and Olson, M. H. (1985) Management Information Systems: Conceptual Foundations, Structure, and Development, second edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. Edwards, W. (1971). Social utilities. Engineering Economist, Summer Symposium Series 6. Goodwin, P. and Wright, G. (1991). Decision Analysis for Management Judgement. Chicester: John Wiley and Sons. Jorna, R. J. (1999). New opportunities for psychology: Signs and information. In Recent Trends in Theoretical Psychology 6, W. Mayers et al. (eds.), 129138. Toronto: Captus Press. Jorna, R. J. and Heusden, B. P. van (1998). Semiotics and information-psychology: A case for semio-psychology. Theory and Psychology 8 (6), 755782. Jorna, R. J. and Kampen, P. R. van (in preparation). Het gebruik van Studas. Faculteit Bedrijfskunde, Groningen University: Internal Report. Kampen, P. R. van (1998). Studas, On the Right Track: A DSS for the (Re)Orientation of Students. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Faculty of Management and Organization, University of Groningen. Laurel, B. K. (1986), Interface as mimesis. In User Centered System Design, D. E. Norman and S. W. Draper (eds.), 6786. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Morris, C. W. (1938). Foundations of the Theory of Signs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Newell, A. (1990). Unied Theories of Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Newell, A. and Simon, H. A. (1972). Human Problem Solving. Englewood Clis, NJ: Prentice Hall. Norman, D. A. (1988). The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books. (1993). Things That Makes Us Smart. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Numan, J. H. (1998). Knowledge-Based Systems as Companions: Trust, Human-Computer Interaction, and Complex Systems. Ph.D thesis, University of Groningen. Simon, H. A. (1976 [1947]). Administrative Behavior. New York: Macmillan. (1960). The New Science of Management Decision. New York: Harper and Row. (1969). The Sciences of the Articial. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Vlek, C. A. J. and Wagenaar, W. A. (1976). Oordelen en beslissen in onzekerheid. In Handboek der Psychonomie, J. A. Michon, E. G. J. Eijkman, and L. F. W. de Klerk (eds.), 447491. Deventer: Van Loghum Slaterus. Jorna (b. 1953) is Professor of Management Science and Cognition at the University Rene of Groningen, The Netherlands pr.j.j.m.jorna@bdk.rug.nlo. His research interests include analytical philosophy, cognitive science, knowledge representation, decision making, semiotics, planning, and cognitive task analysis. His major publications include Knowledge Representation and Symbols in the Mind (1990), `Associationism: Not the cli over which to push connectionism' (with W. F. G. Haselager, 1994), Plannen en Roosteren: Taakgericht analyseren, ontwerpen en ondersteunen (Planning and Scheduling: Task Oriented Analysis, Design, and Support) (with H. Gazendam, H. C. Heesen, and W. van Wezel, 1996), and `The SEC-system: Reuse support for scheduling system development' (with W. van Wezel, in press).