Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Mixed-Initiative Issues in an Agent-Based Meeting Scheduler

  • Published:
User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper concerns mixed-initiative interaction between users and agents. After classifying agents according to their task and their interactivity with the user, the critical aspects of delegation-based interaction are outlined. Then MASMA, an agent system for distributed meeting scheduling, is described, and the solutions developed to control interaction are explained in detail. The issues addressed concern: the agent capability of adapting its behavior to the user it is supporting; the solution adopted to control the shift of initiative between personal agents, their users and other agents in the environment; the availability of features, e.g. the inspection mechanism, that endow the user with a further level of control to enhance his sense of trust in the agent.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen, J., Miller, B., Ringger, E. and Sikorski, T.: 1996, A robust system for natural spoken dialogue. In: Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Santa Cruz (CA), 62–70.

  • Amati, G., D'Aloisi, D., Giannini, V. and Ubaldini, F.: 1997, A framework for filtering news and managing distributed data. Journal of Universal Computer Science 3(8), 1007–1021.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bates, J.: 1994, The role of emotion in believable agents. Communications of the ACM 37(7), 122–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beard, D., Palaniappan, M., Humm, A., Banks, D., Nair, A. and Shan, Y.: 1990, A visual calendar for scheduling group meetings. In: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Los Angeles (CA), 279–290.

  • Brancaleoni, R., Cesta, A. and D'Aloisi, D.: 1997, MASMA: A multi-agent system for scheduling meetings. In: Proceeding of the 2nd International Conference on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Technology, London (UK). 31–50.

  • Cesta, A., Collia, M. and D'Aloisi, D.: 1998, Tailorable interactive agents for scheduling meetings. In: F. Giunchiglia (ed.): Intelligence: Methodology, Systems and Applications. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 1980, Berlin: Springer, 153–166.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cesta, A. and D'Aloisi, D.: 1996, Active interfaces as personal assistants: a case study. SIGCHI Bulletin 28(3), 108–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cesta, A., D'Aloisi, D. and Giannini, V.: 1995, Active interfaces for useful software tools. In: Y. Anzai, K. Ogawa, and H. Mori (eds.): Symbiosis of Human and Artifacts. New York: Elsevier Science, 225–230.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, R., Allaby, C., Cumbaa, C., Fitzgerald, M., Ho, K., Hui, B., Latulipe, C., Lu, F., Moussa, N., Pooley, D., Qian, A. and Siddiqi, S.: 1998, What is initiative? User Modeling and User-Adopted Interaction 8:3–4, 171–214.

    Google Scholar 

  • D'Aloisi, D. and Cesta, A.: 1997, Controlling Initiative in an Agent-Based System. Technical Report 5T06797, FUB.

  • Ephrati, E., Zlotkin, G. and Rosenschein, J.: 1994, Meet your destiny: A non-manipulable meeting scheduler. In: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Chapel Hill (NC), 359–371.

  • Etzioni, O. and Weld, D.: 1994, A softbot-based interface to the internet. Communications of the ACM 37(7), 72–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, G., Allen, J. and Miller, B.: 1996, TRAINS-95: Towards a mixed-initiative planning assistant. In: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems (AIPS-96), Edimburgh (Scotland), 70–77.

  • Finin, T., Weber, J. and et al.: 1994, Specification of the KQML Agent-communication language (Draft). http://www.cs.umbc.edu/kqml/papers/kqmlspec.ps.

  • Friedman, B. and Nissenbaum, H.: 1997, Software agents and user autonomy. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, Marina del Rey (CA), 466–469.

  • Grosz, B. and Sidner, C.: 1986, Attention, intentions, and the structure of discourse. Computational Linguistics 12(3), 175–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grudin, J.: 1988, Why CSCW applications fail: Problems in the design and evaluation of organizational interfaces. In: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Portland (OR). 65–84.

  • Hagen, E.: 1998, An Approach to Mixed-Initiative Spoken Information Retrieval Dialogue. In this issue.

  • Hayes, T., Sen, S., Arora, N. and Nadella, R.: 1997, An automated meeting scheduling system that utilizes user preferences. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, Marina del Rey (CA), 308–314.

  • Hayes-Roth, B.: 1997, Introduction. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, Marina del Rey (CA), xi-xii.

  • Hsu, W.-L., Prietula, M. J., Thompson, G. L. and Ow, P. S.: 1993, A mixed initiative scheduling workbench: Integrating AI, OR and HCI. Decision Support Systems 9, 245–257.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kincaid, C., Dupont, P. and Kaye, A.: 1985, Electronic calendars in the office: An assessment of user needs and current technology. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems 3(1), 89–102.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozierok, R. and Maes, P.: 1993, A learning interface agent for scheduling meetings. In: Proceedings of the 1993 International Workshop on Intelligent User Interfaces, Orlando (FL), 81–88.

  • Lester, J., Stone, B. and Stelling, G.: 1998, Lifelike pedagogical agents for mixed-initiative problem solving in constructivist learning environments. In this issue.

  • Lester, J. C. and Stone, B. A.: 1997, Increasing believability in animated pedagogical agents. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, Marina del Rey (CA), 16–21.

  • Lochbaum, K., Grosz, B. and Sidner, C: 1990, Models of plans to support communication: An initial report. In: Proceedings of the Eighth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Boston (MA), 485–490.

  • Maes, P.: 1994, Agents that reduce work and information overload. Communication of the ACM 37(7), 30–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milewski, A. E. and Lewis, S. H.: 1997, Delegating to software agents. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 46(4), 485–500.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, T., Caruana, R., Freitag, D., McDermott, J. and Zabowski, D.: 1994, Experience with a learning personal assistant. Communication of the ACM 37(7), 80–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muir, B. M.: 1987, Trust between humans and machines, and the design of decision aids. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies 27(4), 527–539.

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers, B. A., Giuse, D., Dannenberg, R. B., Zanden, B. V., Kosbie, D., Mickish, A. and Marchal, P.: 1990, GARNET: comprehensive support for graphical, highly-interactive user interfaces. IEEE Computer 23(11), 71–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nwana, H. S.: 1996, Software agents: an overview. The Knowledge Engineering Review 11(3), 205–244.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pell, B., Bernard, D. E., Chien, S. A., Gat, E., Muscettola, N., Nayak, P. P., Wagner, M. D. and Williams, B. C.: 1997, An autonomous spacecraft agent prototype. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, Marina del Rey (CA), 253–261.

  • Rich, C. and Sidner, C. L.: 1997, COLLAGEN: When agents collaborate with people. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, Marina del Rey (CA), 284–291.

  • Rich, C. and Sidner, C. L.: 1998, COLLAGEN: A collaboration manager for software interface agents. User Modeling and User-Adopted Interaction 8:3–4, 317–359.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, S. and Durfee, E.: 1996, A contracting model for flexible distributed scheduling. Annals of Operations Research 65, 195–222.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shneiderman, B.: 1997, Direct manipulation versus agents: Paths to predictable, controllable, and comprehensible interfaces. In: J. M. Bradshaw (ed.): Software Agents. AAAI Press/The MIT Press, 97–106.

  • Simmons, R., Goodwin, R., Haigh, K.Z., Koenig, S. and O'Sullivan, J.: 1997, A layered architecture for office delivery robots. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Autonomous Agents, Marina del Rey (CA), 245–252.

  • Smith, S. F. and Lassila, O.: 1994, Toward the development of mixed-initiative scheduling systems. In:M. H. Burstein (ed.): Proceedings ARPA-Rome Laboratory Planning Initiative Workshop, Tucson (AZ), 145–154.

  • Steiner, D. D., Mahling, D. E. and Haugeneder, H.: 1990, Human-computer cooperative work. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Bandera (TX), 22:1–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stickel, J. and Johnson, W.: 1997, Mixed-initiative interaction between pedagogical agent and students in virtual environments. In: S. Haller and S. McRoy (eds.): Papers from 1997 AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Models for Mixed Initiative Interaction, Stanford (CA), 128–134.

  • Tate, A.: 1997, Mixed-initiative interaction in O-PLAN. In: S. Haller and S. McRoy (eds.): Papers from 1997 AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Models for Mixed Initiative Interaction, Stanford (CA). 163–168.

  • Walker, M. and Whittaker, S.: 1990, Mixed initiative in dialogue: An investigation into discourse segmentation. In: Proceeding of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Pittsburgh (PA), 70–78.

  • Whittaker, S. and Sidner, C.: 1996, Email overload: Exploring personal information management of email. In: Proceedings of CHI '96 Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM), Vancouver (Canada), 276–283.

  • Whittaker, S. and Stenton, P.: 1988, Cues and control in expert-client dialogues. In: Proceeding of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Buffalo (NY), 123–130.

  • Wooldridge, M. J. and Jennings, N. R.: 1995, Intelligent agents: Theory and practice. The Knowledge Engineering Review 10(2), 115–152.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IP-CNR, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Viale Marx 15, I- 00137, Rome, Italy

    Amedeo Cesta

  2. FUB, Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, Via B. Castiglione 59, I-00142, Rome, Italy

    Daniela D'Aloisi

Authors
  1. Amedeo Cesta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Daniela D'Aloisi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cesta, A., D'Aloisi, D. Mixed-Initiative Issues in an Agent-Based Meeting Scheduler. User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction 9, 45–78 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008359001692

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008359001692

Search

Navigation