Applying intelligent agents technology in a collaborative work environment

The current state of the art in computer-mediated collaborative work is mainly limited by the fairly primitive discourse structures that most asynchronous conference systems implemented so far provide and because they lack consensus seeking and problem solving abilities. To address these issues, we first propose a refined model of the discourse acts met in a collaborative work environment. In the sequel, using this model in the context of an already implemented system, we apply intelligent agents technology in order to enhance and facilitate collaborative work. The overall approach combines concepts from the AI and CSCW disciplines, while aims at giving a highly active role to the participants involved in such environments.