Opinions, Conflicts and Consensus: Modeling Social Dynamics in a Collaborative Environment

Information-communication technology promotes collaborative environments like Wikipedia where, however, controversiality and conflicts can appear. To describe the rise, persistence, and resolution of such conflicts we devise an extended opinion dynamics model where agents with different opinions perform a single task to make a consensual product. As a function of the convergence parameter describing the influence of the product on the agents, the model shows spontaneous symmetry breaking of the final consensus opinion represented by the medium. In the case when agents are replaced with new ones at a certain rate, a transition from mainly consensus to a perpetual conflict occurs, which is in qualitative agreement with the scenarios observed in Wikipedia.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Submitted for publicatio

Application Description and Policy Model in Collaborative Environment for Sharing of Information on Epidemiological and Clinical Research Data Sets

BACKGROUND: Sharing of epidemiological and clinical data sets among researchers is poor at best, in detriment of science and community at large. The purpose of this paper is therefore to (1) describe a novel Web application designed to share information on study data sets focusing on epidemiological clinical research in a collaborative environment and (2) create a policy model placing this collaborative environment into the current scientific social context. METHODOLOGY: The Database of Databases application was developed based on feedback from epidemiologists and clinical researchers requiring a Web-based platform that would allow for sharing of information about epidemiological and clinical study data sets in a collaborative environment. This platform should ensure that researchers can modify the information. A Model-based predictions of number of publications and funding resulting from combinations of different policy implementation strategies (for metadata and data sharing) were generated using System Dynamics modeling. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The application allows researchers to easily upload information about clinical study data sets, which is searchable and modifiable by other users in a wiki environment. All modifications are filtered by the database principal investigator in order to maintain quality control. The application has been extensively tested and currently contains 130 clinical study data sets from the United States, Australia, China and Singapore. Model results indicated that any policy implementation would be better than the current strategy, that metadata sharing is better than data-sharing, and that combined policies achieve the best results in terms of publications. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our empirical observations and resulting model, the social network environment surrounding the application can assist epidemiologists and clinical researchers contribute and search for metadata in a collaborative environment, thus potentially facilitating collaboration efforts among research communities distributed around the globe

Collaborative method to maintain business process models updated

Business process models are often forgotten after their creation and its representation is not usually updated. This appears to be negative as processes evolve over time. This paper discusses the issue of business process models maintenance through the definition of a collaborative method that creates interaction contexts enabling business actors to discuss about business processes, sharing business knowledge. The collaboration method extends the discussion about existing process representations to all stakeholders promoting their update. This collaborative method contributes to improve business process models, allowing updates based in change proposals and discussions, using a groupware tool that was developed. Four case studies were developed in real organizational environment. We came to the conclusion that the defined method and the developed tool can help organizations to maintain a business process model updated based on the inputs and consequent discussions taken by the organizational actors who participate in the processes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Collaborative model development increases trust in and use of scientific information in environmental decision-making

While science matters for environmental management, creating science that is credible, salient to decision-makers, and deemed legitimate by stakeholders is challenging. Collaborative modeling is an increasingly-used approach to enable effective science-based decision-making. This work evaluates the modeling process conducted for two hydropower dam licensing negotiations, to explore how differences in the collaborative development of hydrological models affected differences in their use in subsequent decision-making. In one case, the model was developed iteratively through deliberation with stakeholders. Consequently, stakeholders understood the model and its limitations and trusted the model and modelers; the model itself was also better designed to evaluate resource managers’ questions. The collaboratively-developed model became the focal point for subsequent negotiations and enabled creative group problem-solving. Conversely, in the case with less engagement during model development, the model was not used subsequently by decision-makers. These differences are argued to result from trust built during the modeling process, applicability of the model to test real management scenarios, and the broader social context in which the models were used