=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2048/paper09
|storemode=property
|title=Monkeypuzzle -
Towards Next Generation, Free & Open-Source, Argument Analysis Tools
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2048/paper09.pdf
|volume=Vol-2048
|authors=John Douglas,Simon Wells
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/icail/DouglasW17
}}
==Monkeypuzzle -
Towards Next Generation, Free & Open-Source, Argument Analysis Tools==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2048/paper09.pdf
Monkeypuzzle
Towards Next Generation, Free & Open-Source, Argument Analysis Tools
John Douglas Simon Wells
Edinburgh Napier University Edinburgh Napier University
Merchiston Campus Merchiston Campus
Ediburgh EH10 5DT Ediburgh EH10 5DT
john@johndouglas.co s.wells@napier.ac.uk
ABSTRACT analysis within more complex workflows, for example De-
We introduce a new, free, open-source, web-based argument bategraph4 amongst many others. See [2] for a bibliography
analysis tool called Monkeypuzzle. This is designed to provide of argument diagramming tools. Monkeypuzzle has been in-
both a foundation for creating and visualising reproducible spired by this rich heritage of past argument analysis tools,
argument analyses as well as a flexible framework for in- indeed it’s name is an homage to the common name of the
vestigating new and extending existing argument analysis Araucaria tree. Monkeypuzzle adopts those elements that are
techniques. both familiar and useful from existing tools, such as the two
pane, source text pane and analysis canvas pane, UI pattern
CCS CONCEPTS introduced with Araucaria [6]. The specific boxes and arrows
visualisation is a variation on the de facto Argument Inter-
• Computing methodologies → Discourse, dialogue change Format (AIF) [1] layout found in the OVA/OVA+
and pragmatics; Nonmonotonic, default reasoning and be- tool, utilising circles to depict I -Nodes and diamonds to
lief revision; • Information systems → Web interfaces; depict S -Nodes.
KEYWORDS 3 MONKEYPUZZLE
Argument Analysis, Open Source Tools, Argument Visualisa- Monkeypuzzle is a free, open source, browser-based argument
tion analysis tool that has the following features:
(1) Complete source-code available under a permissive li-
cense - Full source code is available from the ARG@ENU
1 INTRODUCTION GitHub project repository5 under the GPL3 license6 .
Monkeypuzzle is a web-based tool, following an open develop- The importance of this is twofold. Primarily, users
ment model, with a focus on pure argument analysis, support can build the app into their workflow without risk
for flexible deployment, and rapid innovation with respect that it subsequently either becomes unavailable or
to both argument analysis and visualisation techniques. A only available under a restrictive or expensive license.
range of newer features have been developed that go beyond Secondarily, because the source is available, users
the extant tools to address some shortcomings and to sup- can host their own instances and enhance the app
port the needs of changing analytical endeavors. The initial to include features that fit their own research goals;
feature set has been spurred by ongoing work to develop the Monkeypuzzle thus becomes a platform not only
Sustainable Transport Communications Dataset (STCD1 ) for research but also for experimentation with new
[9], an e↵ort to develop a large-scale, high quality analysis of argument analysis and visualisation techniques.
arguments used within sustainable transport communication (2) Multiple deployment options - The primary mode
for behaviour change. During these e↵orts it became appar- of interaction with the app is via the hosted deploy-
ent that a modern, free, and open-source argument analysis ment7 however the app is not server dependent and
tool was required that could meet the needs of contemporary two o✏ine forms are supported. The app can be run
argument analysts, based upon an open development and from a local filesystem by loading the index.html file
deployment model that could sustain rapid, demand-driven into a browser. An o✏ine version is also supported
innovation. so that the app is cached in the users browser and
reloads from there when the user navigates to the
2 RELATED WORK app’s URL, even if the user is o✏ine.
There have been a range of argument analysis tools published (3) Simultaneous analysis of multiple source texts - This
over the years including Araucaria[6], Rationale2 , Ova/Ova+3 , is the main innovation within the Monkeypuzzle
as well as tools that have supported aspects of argument user interface. Multiple source texts, currently set
4
http://debategraph.org
1 5
https://github.com/ADAPT-project/STCD https://github.com/ARG-ENU/monkeypuzzle web
2 6
http://www.reasoninglab.com/ https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
3 7
http://ova.arg-tech.org/ http://arg.napier.ac.uk/monkeypuzzle/
50 18th Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument
Floris Bex, Floriana Grasso, Nancy Green (eds)
16th July 2017, London, UK
to an arbitrary maximum of ten, can be loaded into refined analysis procedures. The authors do not intend to
individual tabs on the text panel and a single analysis suggest that the current application is particularly innovative;
made within the visualisation panel. This enables a beyond the bringing together of a core selection of proven
domain analysis to be created from multiple resources argument analysis techniques in anticipation of a growing
something that is difficult to do with other tools. community of developers who might take the app in directions
(4) Support for canonical representations of text nodes - contrary to those mapped out in the remainder of this paper.
When analysing multiple source texts and attempting
to create a single, large domain analysis rather than a 4 CONCLUSIONS & FUTURE WORK
series of individual analyses, variations in voice, writ- The full roadmap is detailed online8 and the project is un-
ing styles, complexity of language, and completeness der active development. Immediate development goals are
of utterance can reduce the coherency and fluidity as follows: to exploit the use of a tested, reliable, and scal-
of the resulting dataset. The app supports editing of able Javascript graph layout library, such as d3.js9 or cy-
node text into a canonical form whilst also saving toscape.js10 , so that argument graphs can be automatically
the original expressions. This enables higher qual- rendered to the screen, minimising the need for users to
ity, curated argument datasets to be constructed. manually adjust the placement of nodes. Additionally we
This is particularly important as argument research aim to support mapping of selections from disparate source
foci move from straightforward argument analyses texts onto the same analysis nodes, e↵ectively merging nodes
towards reuse of the resultant datasets, for example, that have the same meaning but di↵erent natural language
in natural language generation tools or to support expressions, especially where these have originated from dif-
exploration of contentious knowledge domains. ferent resources. The aim here is to support the development
(5) Serialisation to a simple JSON format - The needs of of large, high quality, and integrated argument maps and
the tool are driving development of a simple, native, corpora across domains rather than being restricted only to
JSON-based file format for saving and loading anal- the analysis of a single given source at a time. The resource
yses. The aim is to identify new, useful criteria that pane, although currently restricted to textual resources, will
can be used to support extension and improvement eventually support analysis of arguments from a variety of
of the AIF. Whilst support for the AIF is on the file types, for example, parsing web-pages (HTML), Portable
project’s roadmap, it was decided that a more ap- Document Format (PDF), video, and audio files, to enable
propriate starting point would be to rapidly account multi-modal argument analysis.
for the various kinds of metadata that the STCD Three areas of active research that we are pursuing are,
analysis work is uncovering. User research during firstly, the integration of modified versions of storymaps that
our development has shown that many researchers incorporate argument structure, secondly, support for e↵ec-
who are performing argument analysis desire the tive dialogue analysis, and thridly, support for visualisation at
ability to make ad hoc collections of metadata, as scale. Storymaps are Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
demanded by their data, and suggest that current that integrate cartographic maps, geospatial data, and nar-
tools frustrate this desire. rative driven content. In 2012, ESRI, a developer of GIS and
(6) Export to graphics formats - Visualisations can be spatial analytics software, introduced storymaps and went
saved for reuse in other contexts using the Portable on to win awards for Best Digital Map Product and Best
Network Graphics (PNG) and Scalable Vector Graph- Overall Map Product from the International Map Industry
ics (SVG) formats. Association. Storymaps have since been used to good e↵ect
(7) Support for hierarchically organised Argumentation in many journalistic contexts and many nice examples can be
Schemes - Walton and Macagno propose a hierarchi- viewed at the Storymaps website11 however an area that has
cal organisation of Argumentation Schemes [8] which not been exploited is the combination of argumentative data
is implemented within the app. This gives structure and metadata with specific locations and journeys so that
to the user and aids in the selection of a scheme to arguments can be visualised in the context of the geographic
assign to an argument, rather than choosing from locations that they relate to. We believe that this could prove
a long list, organised only by scheme set, a user is to be a useful new dimension in the context of how legal
able to select a scheme from a range of categories argument, particularly witness testimony, is explored and
to drill down to an appropriate scheme. The goal is visualised. Dialogue analysis has not been well supported by
to make it easier to select a scheme to characterise the open-source argument analysis tools but the links between
an argument by so that more argument analyses argument and dialogue have been recognised for many years,
contain comprehensive scheme analyses rather than having been explored by O’Keefe [4] in terms of Argument1
extensive use of the “default” scheme. and Argument2 , or argument as process and argument as
product, but also more recently in dialogical extensions to
Bootstrapping a new argument analysis tool to this point has 8
https://github.com/ARG-ENU/monkeypuzzle web/issues
taken significant e↵ort. Much of the existing work has been 9
https://d3js.org/
preliminary sca↵olding to enable the future implementation, 10
http://js.cytoscape.org/
11
integration, exploration, and maintenance of both new and https://storymaps.arcgis.com/en/
2
18th Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument 51
Floris Bex, Floriana Grasso, Nancy Green (eds)
16th July 2017, London, UK
Figure 1: The default Monkeypuzzle User Interface showing the standard, two-pane UI popularised by Arau-
caria. The left-hand pane is the source pane, a tabbed collection of textual resources for analysis. The right-
hand pane is the visualisation pane. The source pane can be completely collapsed to give a user more room
to freely create an argument diagram independent of any specific source text allowing the app to be used for
argument construction and exploration as well as argument analysis.
the AIF [7] which operationalises the co-construction of ar- datasets, and to contribute to a healthy and varied eco-
gument as a product of dialogue. One approach might be system of argument tools to support further development of
to enable dialogues to be annotated according to the rules computational models of argument.
of established dialectical games [10] and for the argumen-
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