ESD Dissertation Defense – Mo-Han Hsieh

Standards as Interdependent Artifacts: the Case of the Internet

Abstract
This thesis has explored a new idea: viewing standards as interdependent artifacts and analyzing them with the network analysis tools. Using the set of standards developed for the Internet as an example, the period from 1989 when there were 76 standards to 2004 when there were 998 standards is the focus of the investigation. The networks studied over this period include the citation network, the author affiliation network, and the co-author network of the Internet standards. The major network analysis tools used include cohesive group decomposition (the recent algorithm by Newman and Girvan is used), equivalence class decomposition (the REGE algorithm and the algorithm developed in this thesis is used), nodal prestige and acquaintance (both calculated from Kleinberg’s technique), and some standard social network analysis tools. Qualitative analyses of the historical and technical context of the standards as well as statistical analyses of various kinds are also used in this research.

A major conclusion of this thesis is that for the understanding of the Internet (and other interoperable systems), the standards must be considered as interdependent artifacts. This is essential because the basic mission of the Internet is to be an interoperable system that enables various services and applications. The development of single standalone standards (the study of which is the focus of past research) cannot produce a workable interoperable system. Therefore, the general approaches and methodologies introduced in this thesis which we label a systems approach is a necessary addition to the three existing approaches (called instrumental, institutional and constructional in this thesis) for the study of standards.

A key finding of the application of the systems approach is that the citation network of the Internet standards can be decomposed into technically and functionally coherent subgroups by using the Newman-Girvan algorithm. This result simultaneously shows that the (normative) citation network is meaningful, and it provides a potentially effective tool for managing and monitoring the standards system. The results in this thesis indicate that organizing the developing efforts of the Internet standard into (now) 121 Working Groups was done in a manner reasonably consistent with achieving a modular (and thus more evolvable) standards system.

A second and very different decomposition of the standards network was achieved by employing the REGE algorithm together with a new algorithm developed in this thesis (see the Appendix) for identifying regular equivalence classes. We used this decomposition to generate five meaningful subgroups of the Internet standards. These subgroups are not functionally coherent as the subgroups found by the Newman-Girvan algorithm, but the standards in each of these subgroups occupy similar positions or play similar roles in the network. The five positions are reflected in the names we have assigned to them which are the Foundations, the Established, the Transients, and Newcomers, and the Stand-alones. The life cycle among these positions for the Internet standards was uncovered and is one of the insights that the systems approach on this standard system gives relative to the evolution of the overall standards system.

Another insight concerning evolution of the standard system is the development of a predictive model for promotion of standards to a new status (i.e. Proposed, Draft and Internet Standards as the three ascending statuses). This model also has practical potential to managers of standards setting organizations and to firms (and individuals) interested in efficiently participating in standard setting processes. The model prediction is based on assessing the implicit social influence of the standards (based upon a well known social network metric, betweenness centrality, of the standards’ authors) and the apparent importance of the standard to the network (based upon calculating the standard’s prestige from the citation network). A deeper understanding of the factors that go into this model was also developed through the analysis of the factors that can predict increased prestige over time for a standard.

The overall systems approach and the tools developed and demonstrated in this thesis for the study of the Internet standards can be applied in other important standards systems. Application (and extension) to the World Wide Web, electric power system, wireless communication, and others would we believe lead to important improvements in our practical and scholarly understanding of these systems.

Thesis Supervisor:
Chris Magee

Committee Members:
Daniel Whitney, David Mindell