A General Template to Configure Multi-Criteria Problems in Ubiquitous GDSS

Abstract

The study of multi-criteria problems adapted to the context of Ubiquitous Group Decision Support Systems (UbiGDSS) is covered in the literature through very different perspectives and interests. There are scientific studies related to the multi-criteria problems that lie across argumentation-based negotiation, multi-agent systems, dialogues, etc. However, to perform most of these studies, a high amount of information is required. The usage of so much data or information that is difficult to collect or configure can bring good results in theoretical scenarios but can be impossible to use in the real world. In order to overcome these issues, we present in this paper a general template to configure multi-criteria problems adapted for the contexts of UbiGDSS that intends to be easy and fast to configure, appellative, intuitive, permits to collect a lot of data and helps the decision-maker transmitting his beliefs and opinions to the system. Our proposal includes three sections: Problem Data, Personal Configuration and Problem Configuration. We have developed a prototype with our template with the purpose to simulate the configuration of a multi-criteria problem. We invited real decision-makers to use our prototype in a simulated scenario and asked to them to fulfil a survey in the end in order to study our hypotheses. Our general template achieved good results and proved to be very perceptible and fast to configure.

How cognitive and affective aspects can influence the outcome of the group decision‐making process

“…Multiagent systems have been frequently used as a tool to support group decision‐making (Aronson, Liang, & Turban, ; Carneiro, Martinho, Marreiros, & Novais, , 2015b; Carneiro, Saraiva, Martinho, Marreiros, & Novais, ; Olfati‐Saber, Fax, & Murray, ). For this type of systems, each decision maker is represented by an agent that tries to negotiate and persuade other agents to accept his opinion (Carneiro et al, ; Palomares & Martínez, ; Santos, Marreiros, Ramos, Neves, & Bulas‐Cruz, ).…”

“…This way, the next section of this work focuses on the definition of each one of these strategies and how they can be used by each agent in their reasoning process. Conflict Resolution—This module contains all the information regarding the conflict style that is used by the participant agent. All considered conflict styles have been proposed in (Carneiro, et al , 2015b) and each conflict style defines how the agent behaves throughout the decision‐making process (for example, the concern given to its own and other agents' preferences).…”

“…• Conflict Resolution-This module contains all the information regarding the conflict style that is used by the participant agent. All considered conflict styles have been proposed in (Carneiro, et al 2015a(Carneiro, et al , 2015b and each conflict style defines how the agent behaves throughout the decision-making process (for example, the concern given to its own and other agents' preferences).…”

Defining an Architecture for a Ubiquitous Group Decision Support System

“…Defining a configuration environment in which the decision-makers could model a multi-criteria problem is a complex process [4]. It is essential that the interface can support easy and fast configurations specially in the context of making decisions inside organizations.…”

“…This application follows a general template that was proposed in [4] and that is divided in three main sections: Problem Data, Personal Configuration, and Problem Configuration. In the first section, it is specified problem specific information that includes criteria and alternatives information.…”