A complete-computerised delphi process with a multi-agent system

Abstract

Looking for alternative ways of coordinating agents, this paper explores the adaptation of the Delphi protocol to agent systems. The Delphi protocol can be applied when a community of experts is required to deliver a consensual answer. In these cases, consensus stands for reaching an agreement among the experts about what the answer should be. This consensus reaching problem has been already considered in the literature, though its automatisation remains as a challenge. Intuitively, the experts should dialogue, interchange ideas, and change their mind as the discussion progresses. This paper presents a computerisation of discussion among expert agents and shows how they can be drawn towards a conclusion discussion by means of the Delphi process. The proof of concept is made with a document relevance evaluation problem where a community of experts decide whether a document is relevant or not. In conclusion, this paper makes an important contribution to people using Delphi processes, because the presented system is the first complete- computerised Delphi process. With respect to multi-agent systems, it has the potential to solve coordination in an original way, different from everything that has been done before. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.