eDSTC Project Proposal – Deer and Eklund (V3.2)

Project Description

Project definition

The multi-criteria techniques applied were developed by Dr. Francois Modave as his PhD thesis. Modave joins Griffith as a postdoctoral research fellow in August 1999 (funded using DSTC generated RQ).

Rather than inventing our own groupware software from scratch, we propose to develop an add-on to Zing’s Web-Grouputer software. Thomas Tilley (a Ph.D. student at Griffith) worked with that software while on contract to Boeing, Australia early 1999.

Project execution

Project review

Project exploitation

Please identify (as best you can) any or all of:

1. Potential industry/industries that may be an audience for the work and results
2. Potential company/organisation(s) that may be an audience for the work and results
3. Relevant company/organisation(s) contact point that may be an audience for the work and results:

Research Theme

1. Enterprise Processes and Work Practice Support

eDSTC target domain

1. Defence
2. Education

Statement of Aims

Objectives

The approach to decision support is generic, the software framework should be customizable and thereby can also be used for workplace democracy, political preferencing, product assessment and other ranking and ordering tasks that involve groups of individuals, evaluating designs, or any other artifact that can presented using the WWW.

For example, Modave has shown how the technique can be used to identify the relationship between certain attributes of moisturiser cream. In that domain, there are 8 well-known attributes of moisturizer: tactility, generousity of touch, spread, penetration, stickiness, shine, presence and oiliness. 10 moisturizers where ranked according to their overall 'richness' by experts. A further 10 different experts where asked to rank the creams according to the 8 attributes. The multi-criteria framework is able to suggest the attributes most influential in the overall richness ranking. It is also capable of showing how the attributes are correlated: for example the strong correspondence between generous to touch and oiliness is obvious but the relevance of shine to penetration a less well understood nugget.

This project moves us from cosmetic assessment to the domain of a DSTC participant, Defence. It involves the establishment of a set of table data presented to the participants using WebGrouputer. Each course of action (CoA1, CoA2 ...) is developed by a special expert team of advisers. These CoAs are outlines of action plans. CoAs are presented to the participants in paper or electronic form, using maps and briefing notes from their initiator.

All the CoAs are presented as tables for the committee members to score. The distributed participants score each CoA according attributes defined by the principles of war. These include (for land warfare): concentration of force, sustainment, security, surprise, flexibility, cooperation, morale, offensive action and achievement of aim. An example of such a table is below.

The numbers are the scores that the committee member (individual #1) ascribes to each CoA. The scores need not be numeric, they may be fuzzy linguistic terms over which a full or partial order is defined, e.g. excellent, very good, good, average, poor, very poor. However, it is possible to compute with either. The table below shows how the individual #2 scored the four CoAs presented.

These individual scores need to be combined or aggregated into either a ranking or a nominal or ordinal score for each CoA. A final group table is produced by a consensus approach, e.g., using Delphi or an average weighted sum approach. If this were a weighted sum then the process would be straightforward. This table represents the combined committee's scores for the CoAs.

A decision must be taken on which course of action to adopt based on the aggregation of the collective ranking by the commander's assessment criterion. Situations will vary but can be as diverse as: peacekeeping, territorial defence, service protected evacuation or conventional warfare. For a given situation the commander sets up an assessment of the importance of the each attribute. For example,

The consensus score table above must be combined, in some manner, with the table of importance assigned by the commander. The essence of our proposal is to recommend a CoA based on aggregation of the weighted assessment criteria.

A further complexity in our proposal is that the multi-criteria decision support theory can be used to further iterate on the CoA rankings. This is an advantage that results both from the tractability of the multi-criteria decision support theory and the distributed groupware paradigm. This is some of the scenarios that can be tacked with this type of the distributed groupware software:

• An individual can be asked why he/she produced an outrider score, has the individual more information than others in the committee or is he/she merely pessimistic about an attribute?
• If a CoA can be modified by providing greater resources then scores for an attribute might change, would the addition of resources in one or more attributes have an effect of the CoA selected?
• Likewise, if new information comes to hand, it may impact upon the CoA and the attribute scores ascribed by the committee may need adjusting.

The multi-criteria decision-theoretic formal framework allows analysis of the correlation or irrelevance of attributes according to the scores given by the committee. The scores can be used to reveal that for example attributes 5 and 6 have a high correlation in CoA2 and CoA3 but appear irrelevant to one another in CoA4.

Over time a knowledge base of correlation factors can be accumulate that help refine the military doctrine. For instance, the historical data may reveal that in peacekeeping situations security and flexibility are highly correlated whereas concentration of force and offensive action are unrelated to CoA selection.

Scientific Foundation

• Innovation –

• There are many multi-criteria decision support frameworks but none that we know of that work for iterative group-wise distributed decision support.

• Key ideas

• The military example gives a clear exploitation pathway and natural example in which to explore this general multi-criteria decision framework.

• Scientific challenges –

• Realizing in software the multi-criteria decision theory
• Designing and constructing a suitable interface using WebGrouputer as a starting point from which to engineering a prototype framework.

• Contribution to the research community

• Publications in the CSCW and group-ware literature, artificial intelligence, decision support and knowledge acquisition literature.

Motivation

• DSTC
  • This project develops a demonstrator for a generic distributed groupware environment that is both immediately valuable to Defence and government participants in the context of group-based decision support using an Internet backbone.
  • The project addresses points 1., 3., and 4. of the key research challenges identified in the 4.4 Enterprise Processes and Work Practice Support section of eDSTC business plan. Furthermore, it proposes to engineer major outcomes identified by points a., b. (bullet point three), and c. of 4.4 of the eDSTC business plan.

• Participant
  • WebGrouputer would have a general purpose add-on for multi-criteria decision support.
  • DSTO will have developed a deployable multi-criteria decision support system strongly conditioned by Defence requirements.

Plan

Approach and Background

The complexity is low because the basic theoretical foundation for the multi-criteria decision making has been well researched and shown tractable.

The development aspect is low-risk because Tom Tilley has good knowledge of the WebGrouputer source-code and can give initial assistance to the software engineering attached to the project.

Dr. Peter Deer is a Major in the Army Reserve. He teaches at the Defence Intelligence Training Centre, and has a clear understanding of the requirements and decision-making sub-culture of the military. This has helped formulate a precise requirement.

List of Outcomes and Schedule

1. Publication/papers
   WWW, IEEE Intelligent Systems, Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, Journal of Decision Support Systems, Group Decision and Negotiation and the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.
2. Training and consulting
   Expertise in the creation of a customizable multi-criteria decision support system for military decision making.
3. National and International Standards
   None
4. Expertise and skill development
   Java programming
5. Impact on education
   The software could be used in graduate courses in the MBA in order to experiment with the development of group decision making and software support.

List the outcomes of the projects with availability dates, including some intermediate milestones to indicate/verify progress.

1. Code the multi-criteria decision support theory developed by Dr. Modave as a CGI server or as Java (6 months).
2. Java programmer to learn and understand the Grouputer software (1 month).
3. Produce a suitable software interface to Grouputer that allows committee participants to score the multi-criteria decision tables (12 months).
4. Integrate points 1 and 3.
5. Test usability with users in the military domain (3 months).
6. Develop installation scripts and package multi-criteria decision support as an add-on to Grouputer.

Indicate exploitation or commercialisation strategies for the outcomes defined above. Give an indication of target audience and methods of reaching that audience.

1. The precise natural of DSTC IP stake will need to be negotiated with Grouputer.
2. Licensing and devolution of the outcomes to CRC participants and customers.

Project Resources

Please list team members:

Number, roles and percentage availability of research staff to be recruited (where possible, identify any key skill requirements)

Any additional support staff required from non-research resources - e.g. project manager, software engineering or sysadmin resources to complete the project. Identify roles and percentage time required.

Associated students (existing or planned) with level of study identified and time period of involvement

Identify all significant travel costs for the proposed period of the project:

1. Domestic or international destination(s) –
   It will be important for at least one member of he project team to attend the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, WWW and ECSCW - European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. Trips interstate to Sydney and Adelaide as per DSTO and Grouputer and other related participant requests.
   
   
2. Purpose of travel
   Presentations to Defence and industry sources are likely to generate contract research outcomes for the DSTC. Demonstration of the software outcomes is an important philosophy for this work.

Identify all equipment required for the proposed project:

1. New software or hardware that would have to be purchased
   1. DSTC Pty Ltd will require an agreement with Zing Technologies Pty. Ltd. for the use of their Grouputer software. Zing Technologies Pty. Ltd have indicated that they are likely to agree to an arrangement allowing the researchers to develop an multi-criteria decision support add-on using its software in return for a royalty fee when or if the add-on software is sold, leased, or rented. Similar arrangements by Zing Technologies Pty. Ltd with commercial organisations have involved up front fees and fees for run-time upgrades. As a consequence this represents an in-kind contribution by Zing Technologies Pty. Ltd to eDSTC.
   2. MUX and keyboards, and suitable groupware display hardware.

Collaboration

Highlight potential or proposed research and commercial collaboration:

1. Internal (with other projects, involvement in integrators/demos, collaboration with participants …)
   This proposal intersects with a number of eDSTC preliminary proposals.

2. External (nominate national or international relationships or organisations)
   Grouputer Corporation Pty.Ltd

   In each case, indicate the form and extent of the relationship – and how it will benefit the project and DSTC.

   Grouputer own the kernel code on which the multi-criteria decision support add-on is to be built.

Related work

There are a number of commercial Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) that incorporate voting, sorting and ranking tools. Face-to-face systems include Grouputer which is the progenitor of the WebGrouputer software. Some products also incorporate "multiple criteria analysis". A face-to-face example is "Resolver* Ballot" while Internet enabled products include MeetingWorks And Facilitate.com.

These products use standard statistical approaches to rank and weight participant scores. What differentiates this work is the uniqueness of the proposed analytical method. Similar facilities do not appear to be available in any of the existing face-to-face or Internet enabled systems.