3rd International IEEE Conference Intelligent Systems, September 2006
Group Decision Process Supported by Web Enabled Small Screen Devices Carlos J. Costa and Manuela Aparicio
Abstract In what concerns decisions making process, groups are obtaining gradually a major role, either as form of information accomplishment, or in the scope of participative management, or even as result of requirement to improvement group efficiency in organizations. It is in this context that group decisions support systems (GDSS) is being subject of study by several researchers. However, the technological development in the PDAs, as well as, the generalization of its use, had enforced its use also in the context group decision support. Here, we make a proposal that has as main intention to support ideas generation and voting tasks. The system proposed here is based on the traditional GDSS, but with the advantage of being accessed by PDA in a Web environment. Index Terms Decision Support Systems, Electronic brainstorming, Group support systems, PDA, Small display devices, Voting
I. INTRODUCTION Life is made of decisions. Consequently, individuals need to make decisions in wide-ranging circumstances. In the professional and organizational environment, decisions are frequently taken in-group, in order to enrich the decision with different points of view. Mitchell & Larson [15] present some advantages for decision making in group: groups can accumulate more knowledge and facts; they may have larger perspectives for considering some alternatives of solutions; when some individuals participate in the same decision process, their degree of satisfaction increase. The group decision problematic and computing support has been studied by several researchers (e.g., [20], [19], [4], [3], [9], [1])). However, some researchers had added the possibility of using PDA. The PDAs are currently used in the support to the individual decision making processes, through tools like electronic calendars, worksheets, or drawing programs [6][5] [12]. PDAs present several limitations and opportunities. PDAs have small dimension, presenting a small screen, hardly visible, even with high resolution. But this fact allows a great manageability and transportability. PDAs present a small dimension keyboards or an insufficient system for introduction data sometimes with a bad character recognition components. But PDAs also allow This work was supported in part by the FCT – Portugal. Carlos J. Costa is with the Information Sciences and Tecnologies Departmente of the ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (e-mail:
[email protected]) e is also with Adetti/ISCTE, Lisboa. Manuela Aparício is with Lusocredito, Lda, Lisboa, Portugal (e-mail:
[email protected]).
1-4244-0195-X/06/$20.00 ©2006 IEEE
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interaction through a pen, something that is potentially more necessary and maybe useful that a mouse. On the other hand, the possibility to use Web Browsers in those devices opens a set of opportunities. In this context, we present a system that may be used either by a small display device (e.g. PDA or smart phones) or by a PC. In this paper, we start by presenting several solutions related to handheld systems and group decision support systems. Then we present main functionalities of our system and discuss it. After that, major aspects concerning evaluation are also discussed. II. LITERATURE REVIEW The use of computer systems in the scope of group decision process has been subject of vast literature. In what concerns groups’ support systems, PDAs had a more limited use. Some of the most important projects related to this subject are briefly analyzed in the following paragraphs. Pebbles the name of an ambitious and wide project, including a software infrastructure ([16], [14] and [17]). The Pebbles project has been exploring how handheld devices, such as PDAs including devices running PalmOS or Pocket PCs, and mobile phones, can be used when they are communicating with a personal computer, with other handheld, and with computerized appliances such as telephones, radios, microwave ovens, automobiles, and factory equipment. One set of applications supports meetings where the participants are co-located. All participants' PDAs are in continuous two-way communication with each other, and with the main computer, which is often projected on a screen to serve as the focal point of the discussion. For classrooms, they are investigating how the student's handheld can enhance testing and note taking when they are connected to the instructor's PC. Another set of applications supports a single user using the PDA as an extra input and output device. NotePals [7] is a meeting support system that automatically combines individuals' meeting notes into a shared record. Shared records are essential to maintaining organizational knowledge. Often, meeting scribes maintain such records, but this puts a heavy load on the scribe and makes all notes subject to his interpretation. Computerized meeting rooms capture information during meetings, but these rooms are expensive and not available in most meeting environments. In the NotePals system, group members record their own notes on a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), and the notes are combined automatically into a shared document. This system spreads note-taking
responsibility across the group, and group members need only PDAs during their meetings. NotePals notes are taken in digital ink, which is free form and frees group members from having to learn a shorthand or correct handwriting recognition. After a meeting, group members dock their PDAs with the personal computers on their desktops, and the notes are uploaded to a central web server where the group can view the shared notes. Notes are organized by type (which the user specifies) and the context (time, workgroup, etc.) in which they were taken. Researchers have built a prototype of the NotePals system and are now extending the work in several areas. They are enhancing the notes browser to organize notes more intelligently and to allow the group members to reorganize them. They are also looking into using external media (such as presentation slides) as context for notes. User tests are also underway to evaluate the note-taking interface and to examine the effect of shared notes on group note-taking practices. The FielsWise [11] is an architecture based on fieldwork in two organizations and feedback from users of prototype systems. According to its researchers, the kind of typical work organization that can benefit from a FieldWise implementation is one where: people’s tasks are time critical and driven by deadlines; the result relies on the creativity of autonomous, but interrelated people; there is a culture of co-operation and sharing of knowledge amongst people and people are mobile and distributed. Shared Text Input (STI) allows networked users to share notes and text across laptops and PDAs such as PocketPCs and Palms [8]. By collaborative reuse of text from other users and presentation materials, Shared Text Input makes note taking easier, especially on small devices without a keyboard. Slides are captured in real time in PowerPoint as they are presented. Because the text bounding boxes are extracted, users of STI can also reuse text from the slides by simply tapping on the slide image. Geney ([2][13]) is a shared information application for Palm Pilots. This work investigates a new interaction paradigm for handheld computing: the use of multiple interconnected handheld devices to form a virtual shared workspace. Given the importance of rich, social interactions of children, they wanted to explore ways to effectively support children's collaboration on handheld computers. They built their collaborative system on top of Geney, an educational software research project at Simon Fraser University. Geney is a Palm OS application for teaching middle school students about genetics; kids try to produce fish with specific traits by "Marrying" fish. Other problem important in this context is the problem of displaying web information on small devices such as PDAs has been subject of great amount of research and a number of different attempts to address the problem have been produced. Research developed may even be categorized according to different perspectives. For example Magnusson & Stenmark [23], supported in other researchers [24][25] identified four categories: client-side navigation; specialized wrappers; duplication of data, and middleware solutions. On the other hand, Schilit et al. [26] identified four categories: transducing, scaling, manual 137
authoring and transforming. Base upon those typologies, it is possible identify a more comprehensive approach based in several dimensions. The first dimension is the adaptation place: it can be client, independent server (e.g. proxy) or server. The second dimension is the type/level of manipulation. The type of manipulation may be scaling, converting and displaying. Scaling is a process that generally is developed by client consisting in providing a user experience that is the closest to desktop browsing [26]. Converting consists in the “transducing” categories of Schilit et al. [26], while it consists just in translating from one format to another. As it is reported by the examples supplied by Schilit et al.[26], systems generally do no transducer (or translate) only, they transform. Displaying consist of having data ad structure, like in a relational database or XML file but no specific display structure. III. PROPOSED SYSTEM We present here a system that can support the decision making model. This model has four phases[21][22]: - Studying of the situation - consisting in the identification of the problem, establishing objectives and finding the causes of the problem. - Creating a range of alternatives – this phase consists in the generation of ideas that can be identified as possible alternatives to solve the problem. - Assessing alternatives and selecting the best – at this stage, alternatives must be studied concerning their impacts and most adequate solutions are selected. - Implementing the decision – in this phase, decision is transformed in action. Then, the result of action must be monitored. The system proposed here is specially fitted to support phases 2 and 3 of the decision making model. The focus of the system is in idea generating in-group and voting of those ideas through the use of technologies. The use of technologies employed in the Web allowed the employment of shared architecture either for PC or for PDA. The user accesses to the system, being able to create, modify and manage sessions. However, generically, this system has two types of users: facilitators and participants. The facilitator creates sessions, determining its beginning and end date. The facilitator still manages sessions, modifying the state of the session. Then, he also activates the tools of generation of ideas and voting. The facilitator also defines which ideas are visible to a particular participant in a given session, as well as, what he may vote. It is still the facilitator that defines in what state participants are: active or pending. Like facilitators, participants must validate the access before carrying through tasks in the sessions. These tasks consist of ideas generation and voting. A specific set of ideas, generating in a specific session, may be in the present or a in previous session, is evaluated. In fact, voting consists of valuating each idea, according to a given scale. In Figure 1 the basic requirements are represented of simplified way using Use Cases with UML notation.
It is important recording the date of beginning and end, beyond session title and state (planning phase, active, closed). Each session groups a set of ideas and a set of votes. Each vote has a value and is produced in a specific date by a participant and related to an idea. Ideas correspond to texts introduced in the system by participants in a specific time. Each idea could be linked to another idea. In Figure 2, the static model of the system is represented using class diagram with UML notation. Beyond the architecture, interface is an especially important dimension.
Create Session
Manage Session
Facilitator
Access Validation Manage Participants
Generate Ideia Participant
Vote
Fig. 1. System’s Use Case Diagram.
It is important to keep several data about the participants, like IP, Name, beginning and end of participation in a session, as well as the state, that could be active or pending. Each participant can take part in some sessions and each session must have at least two participants.
Link Designation Type
Vote 0..*
0..*
Idea 0..*
Text Date Votable
Fig. 3. Entering into the System.
Value Date
0..1 0..* 0..1 0..*
0..*
Session
Participant IP Name Beginning End State
0..*
0..1
0..1
0..*
0..*
Designation Beginning End State
0..1
Fig. 2. System’s Class Diagram.
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In fact, often, it is difficult to enforce homogeny of interfaces in PDA and desktop. In order to impose uniformity in the interfaces, a Web interface was used. However, as long as PDAs were used, a set of practices had to be used in order to minimize some of the limitations of those devices: Horizontal scroll bar must be often used, as long as, the width of a web page is often wider than the screen of a PDA. But, if the application is specifically developed for a PDA, or for a smart phone, developers must have in consideration this limitation of the screen. As long as the screen is small it is important to verify dimension of images employed in an application. Consequently, large images should be avoided. Some additional graphical elements should be
avoided, as well as, programming components that delays to be loaded in memory. It is important reducing the number of available functionalities in one screen. It is desirable using tabular items (similar to folio). Figures 3, 4 and 5 show print screens of the some elements of interface. First screen (fig. 3), shows the how to enter in the system (beginning), serves to perform the login of the user and to make the logout of the session. The “idea generation screen” (shown in figure 3) allows the user editing all the ideas of that session. It also allows the submission of new ideas. Idea generation supports brainstorming. This functionality may be used in any It may be used in any stage of the decision process, but is particularly valuable in the early stages, when members of the group need to think and converse freely on issues. Each individual may produce comments, which are displayed anonymously. This tool has main advantage the increase of creativity and lateral thinking.
Fig. 5. Voting ideas.
In order to implement the system, we used the PHP with system MYSQL. We intended to choose a solution that was portable. Although still in a phase of prototype, it was tested either in Windows environment (WAMP) or in Linux environment (LAMP). IV. DISCUSSION OF SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS
Fig. 4. Inserting ideas in the system.
The “vote screen”, presented in figure 4, makes use all the ideas submitted. Those ideas are listed in decreasing order of antiquity. The user may evaluate each idea according a given scale.
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The system presented here has as main characteristics the fact it does not need a client component to be installed in the PDA. It only needs that the PDA has an installed Browser. On the other hand, there are other systems where this does not happen. Some systems need the installation of an applet in Java, like in the STI [8]. Other systems need specific programs, like in the Pebbles ([16], [14], [17] and [18]). The main disadvantage of our system is the impossibility of having autonomous memory, when devices are not connected [5]. Another characteristic that differentiates this system from the other systems is the fact this one basically support the tasks of ideas generation and voting, in the scope of traditional GDSS like Groupsystems [20][19]. Our system also presents some aspects that are not sufficiently explored. It is the case of the linkage between ideas. It still presents great potentialities as long as it allows the support of complex tasks. This facet existing in the system’s architecture. Nevertheless, it is expected using models like Ibis [4][3] or SODA [10]. This aspect that is subject of future works to.
This system is being used in organizations, either in manufacturing or service business, either in academic and education organizations. The purpose of this phase is to analyze in what extends the system fits corporate needs. In this context, the system was employed in the following situations: Trade mark generation Systems requirements for a financial Portal Some technical aspects are being considered: A module used to invitation to sessions, using XML format file (eventually RSS), is a possible improvement to the system. Intelligent agent to serve as facilitator is also a possible improvement to the system. The linkage between ideas is also being subject of study.
consequence of the development of the linkage between ideas REFERENCES [1]
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V. FUTURE WORK – EVALUATION
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At this moment, the system has been used in test situations, with a reduced number of users. It has also been used in the organizational scope. However, it is intended to make controlled experiments in order to perform an extensive evaluation. The main characteristics of the proposed system are related to the fact that it supports the basic of ideas generation and voting activities. In this context, it is intended to carry through evaluation of the tool used in order to compare performance between PDA and desktop systems. According to the tools/functionalities to be evaluated (ideas generation and voting) the following metrics will be used: number of generated ideas and the quality of generated ideas. Another aspect important to consider will be the infrastructure in terms of HW. Using a PDA has impact not just in a single variable. For example, if a Palm Tunsten C is being used, the following characteristics are adopted: Resolution 320 x 320 instead of at least 600 x 480; The dimension of the screen is very smaller Small keyboard Use of pen in opposition to the mouse.
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VI. CONCLUSION In what concerns decision-making process, groups are getting gradually a more significant role. In this context, GDSS are being used as adequate tools. On the other hand, new technological development fostered the employment of PDAs, as well as, the generalization of its use, opening new opportunities. In this context, we propose a system that has as main intent to support ideas generation and voting tasks. This system is based on the traditional Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS), but with the advantage of being accessed by PDA. This system has as main advantage the fact of not needing a specific client component. On the other hand, it presents potentialities to support sophisticated tasks, as 140
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