Trust is a judgement of unquestionable utility — as humans we use it every day of our lives. However, trust has suffered from an imperfect understanding, a plethora of definitions, and informal use in the literature and in everyday life. It is common to say “I trust you, ” but what does that mean? This thesis provides a clarification of trust. We present a formalism for trust which provides us with a tool for precise discussion. The formalism is implementable: it can be embedded in an artificial agent, enabling the agent to make trust-based decisions. Its applicability in the domain of Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) is raised. The thesis presents a testbed populated by simple trusting agents which substantiates the utility of the formalism. The formalism provides a step in the direction of a proper understanding and definition of human trust. A contribution of the thesis is its detailed exploration of the possibilities of future work in the area. Summary 1. Overview This thesis presents an overview of trust as a social phenomenon and discusses it formally. It argues that trust is: • A means for understanding and adapting to the complexity of the environment. • A means of providing added robustness to independent agents. • A useful judgement in the light of experience of the behaviour of others. • Applicable to inanimate others. The thesis argues these points from the point of view of artificial agents. Trust in an artificial agent is a means of providing an additional tool for the consideration of other agents and the environment in which it exists. Moreover, a formalisation of trust enables the embedding of the concept into an artificial agent. This has been done, and is documented in the thesis. 2. Exposition There are places in the thesis where it is necessary to give a broad outline before going deeper. In consequence it may seem that the subject is not receiving a thorough treatment, or that too much is being discussed at one time! (This is particularly apparent in the first and second chapters.) To present a thorough understanding of trust, we have proceeded breadth first in the introductory chapters. Chapter 3 expands, depth first, presenting critical views of established researchers.

People can behave co-operatively or competitively with other co-workers. An experiment was performed to test the hypothesis that a shared social space (SSS) with continuous and "rich" communication possibilities leads to an increase in forming coalitions. The DOOM game -- as a simulation of a competitive world -- provides a test environment, where a group of four players has to fight against each other. Two samples of 12 persons each were tested playing DOOM: one with the SSS conditions (continuous spoken communication mode, small physical distance among players, no headphones) and another under the condition of separation during the game (discontinuous communication mode: spoken communication only during a break, large physical distance and headphones during the game). During a break all players had have the chance to discuss the outcome of the first trial (group process feedback). The SSS conditions led to a significantly increased amount of coalitions between players. Group process feedback also had a positive effect on the extent of coalitions.

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Many of the designations used by the manufactures and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Every attempt has been made to supply trademark information about manufactures and their products mentioned in this dissertation. A list of the trademark designations and their owners appears below. Trademark notice Access, Netmeeting, Sharepoint Team Services, Windows, and Windows 2000 Server are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation Post-it is a trademark of 3M Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds Professional Quest is a trademark of Dipolar Pty Limited Yahoo! Groups is a trademark of Yahoo! Domino is a trademark of IBM/Lotus Authorware is a trademark of Macromedia Toolbook is a trademark of Click2Learn

An experiment was performed to test the hypothesis that a shared social space (SSS) with continuous and "rich" communication possibilities leads to co-operative behavior. The DOOM game provides a test environment, where a group of four players have to fight against each other. Two samples of 12 persons were tested playing DOOM: one with the SSS conditions (continuous spoken communication mode, small physical distance among players, no headphones), and another under the condition of separation during the game (discontinuous communication mode: spoken communication only during a break, large physical distance and headphones during the game). During a break all players had have the chance to discuss the outcome of the first trial (group process feedback) . The SSS conditions led to a significantly increased amount of coalitions between players. These coalitions, however, seem to be in-stable over time. Group process feedback also had a positive effect on the extent of coalitions.

Abstract. Since the late eighties, more and more researchers have been exploring the potential of collaborative concept mapping to support learning. In those studies, students construct concept maps in pairs or in small groups. This paper presents a review of research trends on collaborative concept mapping in education. We present an overview of the theoretical framework, methodology and main results of 39 published studies investigating this topic. 1

This extended review of the literature on pupil grouping includes an analysis and synthesis of current and yet to be published research to identify types of grouping suited to particular pupils, the range of organisational policies regarding pupil grouping within schools that are related to different levels of performance and subjects suited to particular types of grouping. The review also considers how type of grouping may affect pupil learning and how the transition from primary to secondary school may be affected by various pupil groupings. This review of the literature draws upon studies undertaken in primary and secondary schools. The literature review draws together school-based information on ‘organisational’ and ‘within-class’ grouping of pupils, as well as theoretical background and practical implementation issues. The methodology adopted used systematic procedures that include electronic and hand searching, mapping the research territory and quality-assuring the studies. This review identifies issues in the study of grouping, theories underlying grouping initiatives, the role of grouping practices in school transfer and the importance of teaching pupils to work in groups.

In this paper we analyse data from a self-rated questionnaire together with statistics of the learners' real activity in a collaborative learning environment called EDUCOSM. Besides being of theoretical interest, the manifestation of self-perceptions in actual behavior is important for the development of better support facilities. For example, correct interpretation of both questionnaire and log data is likely to be necessary for partially automated group formation. This paper focuses on motivation and social abilities. The results suggest that group formation carried out without any supporting information from the system does not always lead to good results.

Synergy among departments is increasingly considered vital for organizations to use their full resources to deal with threats and explore opportunities in the rapidly changing marketplace. Although valuable, developing synergy among departments is a difficult management challenge. Departments within organizations often have their own business goals, yet the coordination of these goals is a precondition for overall organizational effectiveness. The need for goal coordination makes departments interdependent (Thompson, 1967), but this interdependence may become particularly problematic when the different departmental goals are incompatible (St. John & Hall, 1991). Because of the value of cooperative goals for coordination, managers want to understand the conditions that lead people to believe their interests are basically positively associated in an organizational setting. In this study, we explore what factors increase the likelihood of having broad role identities, in which employees not only care for the goals characteristic of their own department, but also for goals of other departments.

may be freely shared among individuals, but it may not be republished in any medium without express written consent from the author and advance notification of the editor. Key Words: collaboration, cooperative learning, collaborative teaching, statistics education This paper provides practical examples of how statistics educators may apply a cooperative framework to classroom teaching and teacher collaboration. Building on the premise that statistics instruction ought to resemble statistical practice, an inherently cooperative enterprise, our purpose is to highlight specific ways in which cooperative methods may translate to statistics education. So doing, we hope to address the concerns of those statistics educators who are reluctant to adopt more student-centered teaching strategies, as well as those educators who have tried these methods but ultimately returned to more traditional, teacher-centered instruction. 1. Collaboration in Learning and Teaching Statistics This paper builds on the premise that statistics instruction ought to resemble statistical practice, an inherently cooperative enterprise. Statisticians typically need to work on teams and communicate effectively with their collaborators, who may have little or no background in statistics. Today, nearly all