Collaborative Modelling. Introduction and definition The English sayings “two heads are better than one” and “too many cooks spoil the broth” give an idea of the expectations that arise from a collaboration of people. On the one hand, one would expect that a group of people is able to better observe and perceive situations as well as to make better decisions than a single person would be able to. On the other hand, it is also common knowledge that the collaboration of several people entails the problem of group coordination, which, if disregarded, can make group work inefficient, compared to the work of a single person. There are three kinds of problems that are typically approached by groups: cognition problems, problems with a definite solution or a set of solutions that are certainly better than others; coordination problems, problems that require the group to figure out how to coordinate the behaviour of its members; cooperation problems, problems which feature the involvement of several self-interested, distrustful people who have to work together. Collaborative modelling refers to a process where a number of people actively contribute to the creation of a model. The weakest form of involvement is feedback to the session facilitator, similar to the conventional way of modelling. Stronger forms are proposals for changes or (partial) model proposals. In this particular approach the modelling process should be supported by a combination of narrative scenarios, modelling rules, and e-Participation tools (all integrated via an ICT e- Governance platform): so the policy model for a given domain can be created iteratively using cooperation of several stakeholder groups (decision makers, analysts, companies, civic society, and the general public). As a matter of fact groups require rules (or cultural norms) to maintain order and coherence, as well as diversity and independence of its group members in order to create a kind of a collective intelligence. Bringing together people with diverse perspectives and backgrounds for working together in multi-disciplinary teams is expected to improve the overall group performance, so the first issue on which the collaborative process should be based is the definition of a shared modelling rules framework (the social norms), guiding the modelling team in determining whether a proposal is accepted or rejected. Two usually adopted types of rules are: Rules of majority, where a certain number of group members had to support or oppose a proposal in o...
