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Toward a New Real-Time Approach for Group Consensus: A Usability Analysis of Synchronous Delphi System

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Abstract

The Delphi method is widely used in the fields of education, society, and medicine to achieve consensus and convergence of expert opinions. However, the Delphi method is limited in terms of the temporal and spatial issues to elicit the convergence of the experts’ views; therefore, many studies have aimed to modify its design to improve expert participation for decision convergence. This study proposes a theoretical framework for the synchronous Delphi method that integrates the interaction of the experts to ensure the convergence of the member function of decision making. A case study adopting the proposed method was conducted to synthesize the key factors needed for IT experts in Taiwan to use server virtualization technology. The Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI) was used to analyze its usability. The result showed that the method’s scores in efficiency, affect, learnability and global (general satisfaction) were higher than 60, which was 10% higher than average. In addition, the scores for helpfulness and controllability were 7% higher than average.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Management, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

    Hsin-Ke Lu & Kuo-Chung Chu

  2. Department of Psychology and Counseling, National Taipei University of Education, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

    Sung-Chun Tsai

  3. Department of Information Management, Chinese Culture University, 55, Hwa-Kang Rd., Yang-Ming-Shan, Taipei, 11114, Taiwan, ROC

    Peng-Chun Lin

  4. Department of Management and Marketing, Central Arkansas University, Conway, AR, USA

    Alexander N. Chen

  5. Department of Information Technology, Taipei City Goverment, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

    Hsin-Ke Lu & Peng-Chun Lin

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  1. Hsin-Ke Lu
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  2. Sung-Chun Tsai
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  3. Peng-Chun Lin
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  4. Kuo-Chung Chu
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  5. Alexander N. Chen
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Correspondence to Peng-Chun Lin.

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Lu, HK., Tsai, SC., Lin, PC. et al. Toward a New Real-Time Approach for Group Consensus: A Usability Analysis of Synchronous Delphi System. Group Decis Negot 29, 345–370 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-020-09661-7

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