Intercultural collaboration and support systems: A brief history

Toru Ishida*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

21 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

At the beginning of the new millennium, we proposed the concept of intercultural collaboration where participants with different cultures and languages work together towards shared goals. Because intercultural collaboration is a new area with scarce data, it was necessary to execute parallel experiments in both in real fields as well as in research laboratories. In 2002, we conducted a one-year experiment with Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Malaysian colleagues and students to develop open-source software oriented towards machine translation. From this experiment, we understood the necessity of a language infrastructure on the Internet that could create customized multilingual environments for various situations. In 2006, we launched the Language Grid project to realize a federated operation of servers for language services. Using the Language Grid, we worked with a nongovernmental organization since 2011 to support knowledge communications between agricultural experts in Japan and farmers in Vietnam via their children. We observed that a large community emerged to utilize these nonmature machine translation technologies. During these experiences, by facing different types of difficulties, we gradually came to understand the nature of intercultural collaboration. Problems are wicked and not easily defined because of their nested and open networked origin. Fortunately, multiagent technologies can be applied to model and simulate intercultural collaboration so as to predict the difficulties and to prepare a better support systems. In this paper, we provide a brief history of the research and practice as regards intercultural collaboration and support systems.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPrinciles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems - 19th International Conference, PRIMA 2016, Proceedings
EditorsMatteo Baldoni, Katsutoshi Hirayama, Paolo Torroni, Tran Cao Son, Amit K. Chopra
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages3-19
Number of pages17
ISBN (Print)9783319448312
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event19th International Conference on Princiles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems, PRIMA 2016 - Phuket, Thailand
Duration: 2016 Aug 222016 Aug 26

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9862 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Other

Other19th International Conference on Princiles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems, PRIMA 2016
Country/TerritoryThailand
CityPhuket
Period16/8/2216/8/26

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Computer Science(all)

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