IRI-9311839 Fischer, Gerhard University of Colorado-Boulder $70,000 - 12 mos. Human-Centered, Intelligent Agents Supporting Communication and Collaboration in Domain-Oriented Design Environments This is the third year funding of a three-year continuing award. There is a growing awareness among researchers and users of computer systems that systems based on a "tool" metaphor do not scale up to the information-rich, high-functionality systems of the future. The goals of this project are (1) the extension of theoretical and conceptual frameworks and (2) the design, implementation, and evaluation of prototype systems in order to accommodate the need for and to evaluate the contribution of intelligent agents for supporting communication and collaboration within domain-oriented design environments. The proposed research will explore the embedding of intelligent agents into domain-oriented design environments with the goals of reducing the cognitive load on designers through active behavior, and improving the quality of the designed artifact. Agents could, for instance, help designers avoid overlooking important possibilities and settling on suboptimal plateaus. Incorporating intelligent agents into design raises numerous conceptual, technical, and social issues. Technical problems will include user manipulation of agents through and agent editor, activation of agents in a shared context, presentation of agents, and creation of shared context through specification, construction, task representations, and interaction histories. Social issues will include the new role distributions between humans and computational agents, namely, the embedding of agents in human- centered cooperative problem solving systems supporting communication, coordination, and collaboration. These issues will be addressed by providing extended task representations and accountability through explanation.
