DEMOS tools for online discussion and decision making

Abstract

DEMOS provides an environment that assists the management of discussions and decision making through the web, especially when involving a large population (e.g., a community using the web to debate about city issues). It is based on the integration of three well-proven methods of social research: the Delphi method. Survey techniques, and Mediation method. These are supported by a set of tools (user interfacing, forum management, survey organization, text mining, and clustering), integrated in a layered architecture and adapted to multiple languages (the current version works on English, German and Italian web sites). © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.