Agent Supported Cooperative Work

Improvements in computer networking have heralded great expectations for computer-mediated distributed work. However, experience has revealed that, as information flow improves, a central problem for distributed workers is the administration, management and control of that information. Research into Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) investigates design methods and technologies for the support of collaboration, communication and coordination of distributed group work, both within and among organizations.

In tandem with this focus on the support of distributed communication and collaboration, there have been exciting developments in the fields of Intelligent Agents and Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI), notably in the concepts, theories and deployment of intelligent agents as a means of distributing computer-based problem solving expertise. The paradigm of multi-agent systems forms a proposed basis for the design of CSCW architectures, the support of CSCW operations and for addressing some of the problems of cooperative working.

The application of a multi-agent approach to CSCW makes information exchange among the participants easier by delivering support to the participants, assisting workflows and procedures, and providing convenient user interfaces to CSCW systems. Furthermore, the ideas inherent in such an approach are also applicable to other domains, such as support for interactive learning. Organizations that seek to exploit the advantages offered through CSCW will benefit from the integration of agents in the management and use of their corporate knowledge, especially with the advancement of wired or wireless networking, pervasive computing, and other information technologies.

Agent Supported Cooperative Work describes the state of the art in this exciting new area, covering both theoretical foundations and practical applications of ASCW. It is the first book explicitly dedicated to ASCW, bringingtogether contributions from international experts in the field.

Contenu
Agent Supported Cooperative Work: an Introduction.- Agent-Augmented Meetings.- Using Agents to Promote Effective Co-ordination in a Community Care Environment.- Reactive Agents for a Systemic Approach to the Construction of Coordination Mechanisms.- Actor Computing & Awareness for Collaborative Workgroups: a General Model and its Web Application.- Active Calendars and the Need for the E-social Contract.- A Mobile Agent Framework for Digital Nomads.- Managing Distributed Parallel Workflow Systems Using a Multi-agent Method.- Mobile Agent Supported Cooperative Work.- Agent Supported Web-based Cooperative Design.- A Complex Systems Perspective on How Agents Can Support Collaborative Design.- Privacy and Authentication for Agent Supported Cooperative Work.