SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES
Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) has 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 the partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), task structure analysis, coordination communication protocols, etc.  Collaboration 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 collaboration systems, promoting coordinated human activity, could be enhanced by incorporating insights from MAS.  Collaboration 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 collaboration 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 the division of labor between CTS and MAS elements during execution.

The Workshop topics include (but are not limited to) the following:
  MAS: Coordination of and by Computational Agents

• Agent Communication, Languages and Protocols
• Agent Models and Architectures
• Multi-Agent Coordination and Cooperation
• Human-Agent Interaction
• Multi-User/Multi-Agent Interaction
• Teamwork, Coalition Formation, Coordination
• Peer to Peer Coordination
• Modeling the Dynamics of MAS
• Agent-based System Development
• Collective Decision Making
• Bargaining and Negotiation
• Auction and Mechanism Design
• Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Agents
• Complex MAS
• Virtual Agents Applications
• Conversational Agents
• Distributed Task Planning and Execution
• Cooperation with Humans and Robots
• Collective Intelligence
• Agent Reasoning
• Mining Agents
• Security Agents

  CTS:  Agent Technologies and Systems Supporting Collaboration Among Humans

• Architectures and Design of Collaborative Systems
• Frameworks and Methodologies for Collaboration
• Cognitive and Psychological Issues in Collaboration
• Collaborative Human-Centered Systems
• Cultural Aspects & Human Factors in Collaboration
• Interfaces for Collaborative Work
• Social Software Based Collaboration
• Visualization of Collaborative Processes
• Web Infrastructure for Collaborative Applications
• Information Infrastructure for Collaboration
• Management of Metadata for Collaboration
• Mobile and Wireless Collaboration Systems
• Modeling and Simulation of Collaboration
• Platforms for Collaboration
• Collaboration in Domain Applications

Important:  A submitted paper must have keywords from BOTH lists of MAS and CTS! 

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.

PAPER SUBMISSION
You are invited to submit original and unpublished research works on the above and other topics related to Collaborative Technologies and Multi-Agent Systems.  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 400 words. We welcome prospective participants to submit either full papers (up to 8 pages) or short papers ( up to 4 pages).  The manuscript should use the two-column IEEE format.  Additional pages will be charged at additional fee.  In case of multiple authors, an indication of which author is responsible for correspondence must be indicated.  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 the Workshop link https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=imasc13.     

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 2013 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 by major indexing services accordingly.

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


IMPORTANT DATES


WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
International Program Committee*: 
All submitted papers will be reviewed by the workshop technical program committee members following similar criteria used in CTS 2013. 

    (*Committee formation is pending and will be finalized shortly.)


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://cts2013.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. 

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1.  "The Challenge of Finding Intelligent Agents," IEEE Intelligent Systems, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 3-5, 7, July/Aug. 2007, doi:10.1109/MIS.2007.78