Implementation of an Activity Coordination System

Abstract

An activity coordination system helps its users describe, guide, and monitor processes in which they are involved. The activity coordination system described here is based on a formalism suited to the modular description of complex distributed activities. An activity, once described, may be executed as a distributed computation, organizing the interaction of the activity's participants. The system supports activities that last a long time, allows them to be examined as they execute, and may be extended to provide for new types of activities. 1 Introduction This paper 1 describes the status of a project to provide computer-based support for the coordination of human activities. We aim to describe the structure of activities, not their content. For instance, we can model "wait until the Project Manager and the Design Engineer agree on a design," but not "produce a design that meets some given requirements." Such activity coordination plays a central role in the Knowledge Based Softwa...