Evaluation. Two important results that emerged from case studies of pairs of students using C-CHENE : (1) students actually areable to auto-classify their communicative action in a manner required by the interface, (2) the 'passive constraint' on the form of the students' interaction, imposed by the interface, did succeed in encouraging them to engage in more task-related discussion, and explanation than in the 'free' chat-box interface.
BOOTNAP
We conducted experiments on computer-supported collaborative problem solving, using a MOO environment (tecfamoo.unige.ch - port 7777) and a whiteboard system (BeingThere™). The goal is to study social grounding, i.e. the mechanisms by which two humans verify that they understood what the other meant, and if it is not the case, repair misunderstanding [Clark & Brennan 91]. These mechanisms are central to negotiation. In human-human conversation, grounding relies on various techniques, including gestures and drawings. We study which schemata are drawn by two agents who have to solve a problem together and which role do these schemata play in social grounding or negotiation. The results of this work should help us to design more powerful collaboration interface between a human user and a knowledge-based system.
