Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have grown into an interdisciplinary field that includes various tracks and embraces many previously distinctive research areas.  Particularly, multi-agent coordination, a sub-area of MAS, investigates how multiple intelligent computational agents work together to achieve high level goals beyond the capabilities of single agents.  Many different approaches have been investigated, such as partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), task structure analysis, coordination communication protocols, etc.  Collaborative Technologies and Systems (CTS) have evolved significantly as well. These tend to investigate the design and development of effective environments or tools that help human users work together in a distributed collaborative, possibly virtual, fashion.  Some notable examples of CTS include Collaboratories, collaborative design/editing, and on-line collaboration tools and environments.  CTS is beginning to look at the challenges of supporting coordinated, purposive activities.  MAS is still facing challenges of scaling to large numbers of entities and real-world tasks (see, for example, Hendler's question of, “where are all the intelligent agents?"1).  

This workshop will explore potential synergy between CTS and MAS/coordination because they share a common ground: how multiple entities ─ intelligent agents or humans alike - work together to carry out potentially related tasks.  We will ask questions of whether and how design and development of collaborative systems, promoting coordinated human activity, could be enhanced by incorporating insights from MAS.  Collaborative technologies embody practical considerations from the human users' points of view, allowing users to ignore how the underlying (agent) infrastructure is implemented.  Meanwhile, MAS/coordination investigates intelligent agents’ underlying algorithms and mechanisms and, in some cases, how artificial agents can interact with people as peers.  Conversely, intelligent agents will not see significant acceptance, nor will they be able to manage the complexity and knowledge-intensity of meaningful practical applications, without developing some understanding of how to make effective use of human contributions throughout the specification, execution, evaluation and refinement stages of the software lifecycle.  

This workshop solicits papers that discuss synergies between MAS and CTS, possible advantages/disadvantages of hybrids between them for designing and developing modern distributed collaborative software systems, and research and/or real-world experience and/or applications and/or lessons learned that involve both CTS and MAS.  That is, any paper that addresses both CTS and MAS, preferably in one or a set of applications that share similar underlying research challenges, is of interest to this workshop.  An example could be: the design and development of a collaborative environment (say, a distributed planning tool) that enables multiple heterogeneous, human experts and agents to work in combination across computer networks on courses of actions in response to cyber attacks.  Another example might be systems or interfaces supporting divisions of labor between CTS and MAS elements during execution.

Synergies of CTS and MAS topics are of interest with respect to any phase of a human or software systems lifecycle:  specification, implementation, testing, evaluation, and deployment. 

You are invited to submit original and unpublished research works on above and other topics related to Multi-Agent Systems and Collaborative Technologies.  Submitted papers must not have been published or simultaneously submitted elsewhere.  Submission should include a cover page with authors' names, affiliation addresses, fax numbers, phone numbers, and email addresses.  Please, indicate clearly the corresponding author and include up to 6 keywords from the above list of topics and an abstract of no more than 450 words.  The full manuscript should be at most 8 pages using the two-column IEEE format (the cover page does NOT count towards this page limit).  Additional pages will be charged additional fee.  Please include page numbers on all preliminary submissions to make it easier for reviewers to provide helpful comments.  Submit a PDF copy of your full manuscript to the Workshop paper submission site at http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=imasc2011.   

Notably, (1) only PDF files will be accepted; (2) papers should have the following name format for easy identification: ‘Surname_Initial_1.PDF’, where the Surname is that of the first author; and (3) follow the Easy Chair website instructions to login into the system (or create your account if necessary) and upload your paper accordingly.

Each paper will receive a minimum of three reviews.  Papers will be selected based on their originality, relevance, technical clarity and presentation.  Submission implies the willingness of at least one of the authors to register and present the paper, if accepted.  Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that their papers will be registered and presented at the workshop.  

Accepted papers will be published in the Conference proceedings.  Instructions for final manuscript format and requirements will be posted on the CTS 2011 Conference web site.  It is our intent to have the proceedings formally published in hard and soft copies and be available at the time of the conference.  The proceedings is projected to be included in the IEEE Digital Library and indexed accordingly.  

If you have any questions about paper submission or the workshop, please contact the Workshop organizers.  

International Program Committee:  

All submitted papers will be reviewed by the workshop technical program committee members following similar criteria used in CTS 2011.  

      •    Myriam Abramson        Naval Research Laboratory, USA
      •    Giacomo Cabri                University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy
      •    Kevin Couśin                     Air Force Institute of Technology, USA
      •    Tim Finin                           University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
      •    Zhi Jin                                 Peking University, China
      •    William McQuay             Air Force Research Laboratory, USA
      •    Elena Simperl                   University of Innsbruck, Austria
      •    Brian Slack                        Boeing Corporation, USA
      •    Waleed W. Smari           University of Dayton, USA
      •    Munindar P. Singh         North Carolina State University, USA
      •    Pedro Szekely                   University of Southern California, USA
      •    John Yen                             Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA
      •    Chengqi Zhang                 University of Technology - Sydney, Australia
      •    Laura Zavala                     University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA
      •    Haibin Zhu                         Nipissing University, Canada

* Partial List.   Will be completed shortly. 

Previous I-MASC Workshop:  1st I-MASC10@CTS10 (http://cisedu.us/cis/cts/10/main/storageDocs.jsp?doc=/docs/cts/10/workshops/W04.IMASC.html), Chicago, Illinois, USA

For information or questions about Conference's paper submission, tutorials, posters, workshops, special sessions, exhibits, demos, panels and forums organization, doctoral colloquium, and any other information about the conference location, registration, paper formatting, etc., please consult the Conference’s web site at URL:http://cts2011.cisedu.info/ or contact one of the Conference's organizers or Co-Chairs: Geoffrey C. Fox at gcf@indiana.edu  and Waleed W. Smari at Smari@arys.org.