Abstract

In the general context of Group Decision Support System (GDSS), the paper investigates the possibility to externalize and support, from a metacognitive perspective, the effective use of facilitation knowledge with self-development capabilities. The experimental results make evident that these capabilities may be easily engineered by adopting the basic principles of the design for emergence in constructing an e-meeting facilitation tool that act as a stigmergic collaborative environment for the participants. Basically, the GDSS needs to provide a minimal structure for modeling the group decision process (GDP) which enables a participant-driven approach to group facilitation and magnify the sense of social participation. In this way, the GDSS may provide a collaborative environment where unpredictable and more effective models of GDP design will emerge through the exploration of the problem space.