Second International Conference
on the Design of Cooperative Systems

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CALL FOR PAPERS

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Objectives

Information systems or knowledge-based systems of the new generation no longer aim at performing by themselves the whole task for which they are designed. They are rather intended to cooperate with their users for performing the task, as it is a real-world, complex task, often performed in the framework of a collective work: therefore, they are called cooperative systems.

The design, validation and maintenance of such cooperative systems, their integration in workplaces and the analysis of their effects in workplaces will take benefit from relying on an interdisciplinary approach, so as to exploit the characteristics of the cooperation between human agents and software agents.

The purpose of the conference is to help to solve the problems arisen from the construction of cooperative systems, by :

• a better understanding of human-human or human-computer cooperation,
• the proposition of models of cooperation, and
• the proposition of new functions for cooperative systems and of suitable design methodologies.

Therefore, we hope to bring together researchers from various communities (cognitive psychology and ergonomics, computer-supported collaborative work, distributed artificial intelligence, group decision support systems, knowledge engineering, management science, organization sciences...) that all contribute to the understanding of the specificities of cooperative systems and to the modelling of cooperation. Both theoretical contributions or empirical studies may be valuable for the conference.

The conference will include both presentation of communications and panels upon specific topics.

Suggested topics for submissions include, but are not limited to:

• What models of cooperation can be achieved for human-computer interaction (in particular for collective problem solving in workplaces)?
• What are the characterizations of cooperative, heterogeneous agents (i.e.human agents and software agents)?
• What frameworks/methodologies can be offered for building cooperative systems (for example, for knowledge acquisition and validation of cooperative systems)?
• How to identify appropriate agents to involve in a task, and the cooperative interactions required to perform a task (e.g. synchronous or asynchronous interactions) ?
• Which techniques are helpful for collective problem solving?
• What are the possible architectures for cooperative systems?
• What communication skills are required for the use of cooperative systems (e.g. face to face or distant)? What kinds of dialogues, negotiation or explanation techniques, or user models are relevant for cooperative systems?
• How to provide a cooperative system for supporting a workgroup? In particular, how to build intelligent computer environments for facilitating cooperation among users of diverse abilities during a problem-solving process?
• What lessons have been learned from the implementation and integration of actual cooperative systems?

Important Dates

• December 31, 1995 (Extended): Papers submission deadline
  
• March 11, 1996: Notification of acceptance or rejection
  
• April 15, 1996: Camera ready copies received
  

Submission Details

Papers should be written in English and should not exceed 20 pages.
The contribution should be in Times 12 points or equivalent, 1/2 spaced text.
Postcript files are the only formats accepted if you want to send your contribution by electronic mail.
In addition to the abstract, the authors are invited to indicate the topics and the field of their paper (preferably, but not exclusively chosen in the two following lists):

TOPICS

INRIA Sophia-Antipolis

Location

The workshop itself will take place in Juan-les-Pins (near Nice, in South of France), June 12 - 14, 1996. The organizing body for the workshop will be the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA). The official language for the workshop will be English.

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INRIA Sophia Antipolis