Complexity theory and collaboration: An agent-based simulator for a space mission design team

In this paper, we investigate how complexity theory can benefit collaboration by applying an agent-based computer simulation approach to a new form of synchronous real-time collaborative engineering design. Fieldwork was conducted with a space mission design team during their actual design sessions, to collect data on their group conversations, team interdependencies, and error monitoring and recovery practices. Based on the fieldwork analysis, an agent-based simulator was constructed. The simulation shows how error recovery and monitoring is affected by the number of small group, or sidebar, conversations, and consequent noise in the room environment. This simulation shows that it is possible to create a virtual environment with cooperating agents interacting in a dynamic environment. This simulation approach is useful for identifying the best scenarios and eliminating potential catastrophic combinations of parameters and values, where error recovery and workload in collaborative engineering design could be significantly impacted. This approach is also useful for defining strategies for integrating solutions into organizations. Narjès Bellamine-Ben Saoud is an Associate Professor at the University of Tunis and Researcher at RIADI-GDL Laboratory, Tunisia. After Computer Science engineering diploma (1993) of the ENSEEIHT of Toulouse, France, she received her PhD (1996), on groupware design applied to the study of cooperation within a space project, from the University of Toulouse I, France. Her main research interests concern studying complex systems particularly by modeling and simulating collaborative and socio-technical systems; developing Computer Supported Collaborative Learning in tunisian primary schools; and Software Engineering. Her current reserach projects include modeling and simulation of emergency rescue activities for large-scale accidents, modeling of epidemics and study of malaria, simulation of collabration artifacts. Gloria Mark is an Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine. Dr. Mark received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University in 1991. Prior to UCI, she was a Research Scientist at the GMD, in Bonn, Germany, a visiting research scientist at the Boeing Company, and a research scientist at the Electronic Data Systems Center for Advanced Research. Dr. Mark’s research focuses on the design and evaluation of collaborative systems. Her current projects include studying worklife in the network-centric organization, multi-tasking of information workers, nomad workers, and a work in a large-scale medical collaboratory. Dr. Mark is widely published in the fields of CSCW and HCI, is currently the program co-chair for the ACM CSCW’06 conference and is on the editorial board of Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing, and e-Service Qu@rterly.