This document describes a project aimed at developing and evaluating software to support online social deliberation skills. The project has received funding from the National Science Foundation. It involves researchers from the fields of computer science, psychology, law and conflict resolution. The project seeks to enhance online dialogue and deliberation tools to provide support like perspective taking, self-reflection, consideration of different viewpoints, and management of uncertainty. It explores facilitating skills related to argumentation, critical thinking and inquiry. The project also examines issues around power differences and applying deliberation methods across cultural contexts. It aims to provide passive interface supports, facilitator dashboards, and adaptive intelligent supports within mediated online discussions.

1. Supporting
Social Deliberative Skills
in Online: Dialog, Deliberation, and Dispute Resolution
Tom Murray
Senior Research Fellow, Univ. of Massachusetts
March 2012
1

2. ―The Fourth Party: Improving Computer-
Mediated Deliberation through Cognitive,
Social and Emotional Support‖
 3-Year NSF Social Computing grant,
started Fall 2010
 Description at
www.tommurray.us/socialdeliberativeskills/
2

3. Project collaborators
 Beverly Woolf: CompSci, PI (intelligent and collaborative educational
systems)
 Tom Murray: CompSci; project manager/co-PI, principal visionary and
instigator (ed-tech, cog-psych & D&D)
 Leah Wing (social justice and conflict resolution), Ethan Katsh (ODR), Legal
Studies, co-PI‘s
 Lori Clark & Lee Osterweil, CompSci, co-PI‘s (ODR, software engineering)
 Linda Tropp, Psychology of Peace and Violence, advisor (intergroup
relations/conflict)
 Zan Goncalves, New England Center for Civic Life (―teaching, practice and
study of deliberative democracy‖)
3  Idealogue Inc.; iCohere. Inc. — Advanced dialogue software platforms.

4. Outside Collaborators
(some budding)
 National Mediation Board (management/labor disputes in
transportation sector)
 DemarsAssociates.com/PayPal/ebay (e-commerce)
 Juripax.com (online workplace and divorce settlements)
 Idealogue.com (depth-oriented online dialogue platform)
 iCohere.com (online communities and work groups)
 Mass Dept. of Dispute Resolution (civic engagement)
 Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (civic engagement)
 New England Center for Civic Life (―teaching, practice and
study of deliberative democracy‖)
4

5. Dialog/Deliberation
Dispute/Conflict Resolution
 Civic engagement/public dialogue
 International & inter-group conflict
 Labor/management, consumer
disputes alternative dispute
resolution
 Interpersonal disputes / mediation
 Deliberative decision making
(school, work, home)

6. Debate, Dialogue and
Deliberation
Deliberation: ―thoughtful, careful, or lengthy consideration by
individuals; and formal discussion and debate in groups‖ (Davies &
Chandler 2011)

7. Social Deliberative Skills:
Social/Emotional/Reflective
Perspective taking & cognitive
empathy
Perspective seeking (curiosity/inquiry)
Self-reflection: on one's biases,
intentions, emotional state
Meta-dialog: Reflect on the quality of
the dialog
Epistemic skill: e.g. treating facts/data
differently from opinions/hypotheses
Tolerance for uncertainty, ambiguity,
disagreement, paradox
7
…

8. Social Deliberative
Skills

9. 9

10. Social Deliberative Skill:
application of HOSs to me/you/we
Higher Order Skills
Higher Order Skills applied to:
• argumentation
• critical thinking
SELF
• explanation & clarification
goals; level of certainty;
• inquiry/curiosity
feelings, values, assumptions…
(question asking &
YOU
investigation)
goals, assumptions, feelings,
• reflective judgment
values; perspective taking;
• meta-cognition
"believing" & cognitive empathy…
• epistemic reasoning
WE
agreements, goals; quality of
Apply these skills, not to the discourse/collaboration;
EXTERNAL REALITY differences and similarities in
(―IT‖/problem domain) but to values, beliefs, goals, power, roles…
the
INTERSUBJECTIVE domain

11. Skills & Issues in Transformative Conf.
Res., Social Justice & Inter-group relations
 How mediators/facilitators assess and respond to differences:
 Race, ethnicity, culture
 Gender, sex
 Situational power (e.g. management vs. labor)
 In-group/out-group dynamics
 Challenge assumptions of universality in predominant CR
methods
 Orientation to individual vs. group (‗I statements‘)
 Focusing on future vs. history (and ‗story‘)
 Role of high-emotion language
 Independent vs. known & trusted facilitators
 Can‘t assume all are free to speak

12. Support/Scaffolding vs.
―Education‖
Outcomes:
- Agreements/solutions
- Relationship, Trust (social capital)
- SKILL USE (and practice)
Facilitated
Existing
Skills Online
DELIBERATION
Facilitator
Passive Support Adaptive
Support (Dashboard Support
(interface) (4th party)
)

13. Use technology to support
deliberative skills in three
ways
 1. Support participants through passive
interventions (e.g., visualization tools, prompts, and
process structures)—>Ideologue software;
 2. Support facilitators or mediators to evaluate
the situation and decide what to do—>Dashboard;
 3. Provide automated adaptive support (e.g.,
coaching, guidance, or tutorials) that directly or
indirectly teaches or builds these skills—> text
analysis.

14. Participate today at Beyond Tolerance 5/ 11/ 10 8:39 AM
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15. [CURRENT] WEEK 1: Discuss the pros and cons of leg...
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[CURRENT] WEEK 1: Discuss the pros and cons of legalizing mariju ana.
To focus the conversation, we invite you to assume you are on an advisory panel for the state
legislature, having some preliminary conversations online, and you will eventually be drafting
a group recommendation. Consider not only your own preferences but what is best for the
state (or society).
edit delete
ines-v
arthur-x
joseph -t
laura-t
CONTRIBUTE YOUR THOUGHTS
rtwells
matthew-s
1 4:53 EDT Sunday, November 1 3 by tomm
tomm
tomm has joined the conversation
2 3:53 EDT Saturday, November 12 by ines- v
DI ALOGUE TABLE
ines-v added a resource: 'Getting a Fix' Everyone (no demographics set)
2 3:52 EDT Saturday, November 12 by ines- v
I have to disagree with your third point that marijuana is a gateway drug. Of
all the people I know that smoke marijuana, they do not do any hard drugs.
I do agree that gateway drugs exist, however I feel lik e that typically
happens from one hard drug to another when one doesn't seem to be
enough. But if you want to talk about gateway drugs we would also have to
mention alcohol and cigarettes which many people consume and smoke.
Alcohol and cigarettes are also drugs and often considered gateway drugs.
They are both legal so that option is void in regards to marijuana.
You also mentioned cancer and other lung related issues. Marijuana is a
natural plant. Cigarettes are made up of extremely harmful chemicals that
cause lung related issues and cancer much faster than marijuana ever could.
Yet, they are still legal. If anything, cigarettes should be illegal when
considering public health. Marijuana is a lot safer than cigarettes.
I do appreciate you playing Devil's advocate though!
I'd lik e to explain how I see it differently (ines-v)
1 8:26 EDT Friday, Novem ber 11 by arthur- x
It seems lik e the vast majority is suppo rtive of the legalization of marijuana,
so I'm going to play devil's advocate in order to bring the opposition's side
to the table.
First off, research has demonstrated that marijuana use reduces learning
15 ability by limiting the capacity to absorb and retain information. A 1995
study of college students discovered that the inability of heavy marijuana
users to focus, sustain attention, and organize data persists for as long as 24
hours after their last use of the drug. Earlier research, comparing cognitive
abilities of adult marijuana users with non-using adults, found that users fall
short on memory as well as math and verbal sk ills. Although it has yet to be
proven conclusively that heavy marijuana use can cause irreversible loss of
intellectual capacity, animal studies have shown marijuana-induced

16. Mediem
Opinion Sliders
16

17. iCohere example: Passive support for
skills
(also supporting: appreciation, inquiry;
anonymous discussions)

18. Facilitator Dashboard (―Wizard of Oz‖ trials)
18

19. >> Data domains
and analysis
1. Classroom online dialogues
2. ODR (online dispute
resolution)
3. Online civic engagement
19

20. Text Analysis Domains
 College classroom dialogs (UMx3x3, FP x1x4)
 Experimental & Control groups
 ODR
 E-Commerce (e-bay auto disputes; x 3000)
 Juripax – divorce settlement & workplace dispute (x 2)
 Civic Deliberation
 E-Democracy.com (Minnesota neighborhood) (x 3)
 Mass Dept of Dispute Resolution —Forest Futures process (x 2)
 Misc
 GovTeen.com (Philosophy & Ethics forum) (x 2)
 Bi-community faculty deliberation on conference venue

21. Samples from online
dialogs
EBay (e-commerce):
 ―This seller is fraudulent and should be removed
from eBay. Why should a eBay buyer have to be put
through this.‖
 ―…my good feedback be tarnished by these bottom
feeders. That lay and cheat honest people out for
there hard earned money.‖
21

22. e-democracy: Minneapolis
Powderhorn Neighbors Forum
51 posts — by 31 authors, Dec. 2010
Post #1: …while I still love my neighborhood for all its arty, community
garden, Fair Trade goodness, I am disappointed -- and yes, angry.…
these past few weeks [by what] feels disturbingly like [racial] targeting.
This, coupled with the [documented] surveillance of parents of color…
Post #2: I'm so sorry that you are having this experience, especially in
a
neighborhood that prides itself on diversity. Thank you for sharing here
so
people can be more aware that this is still happening.
…Post #6: …The whites in Powderhorn pride themselves on diversity,
but few actually mingle with their neighbors of color. They tend to reach
22
out to the other liberal artsy gardening whites…

23. Workplace dispute:
Intake summary
Boss (Grieta)  Moderator
―Ryker has created a situation in which a continuation of the
work relationship is no longer possible. What I am
concerned, we are talking about terminating the work
relationship. I will of course cooperate fully with a constructive
mediation and hope for the best. It is unlikely that I myself can come
to a solution with Ryke.r‖
Employee (Ryker)  Moderator
―Since late last year it has been a mess in the company.
Management is unclear and inconsistent. The work relationship is
disrupted. They want to get rid of me. I am literally "sick" of
it. My confidence in the company has been shaken to such a point
that I am not sure if I want to stay.‖

24. Codoole – coding
tools
24

25. Contingency Analysis Mosaic Plot

26. Automated Text Analysis
LIWC (Pennebaker et al.) – Dictionary-based
 4,500 words/STEMS; 80 word categories
 we focus on 19 of them
 80 >> 4 general descriptor categories (word count, words per sentence, % of
words captured, and % of words >6 letters), 22 standard linguistic dimensions
(e.g., % pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, etc.), 32 psychological constructs
(e.g., affect, cognition, biological processes), 7 personal concern categories (e.g.,
work, home, leisure activities), 3 paralinguistic dimensions (assents, fillers,
nonfluencies), and 12 punctuation categories (periods, commas, etc).
 Coh-Metrix (Graesser et al.)
 syntax, referential cohesion, semantic cohesion, rhetorical composition…
 100 measurements output
 We focus on 4 composite measurements (or major factors): Narrativty,
Referential Cohesion, Syntactic Simplicity, and Word Concreteness

27. Deliberative properties for
several domains

28. Automatic Text Analysis
• Dialogue characteristics:
• Compare: dialogues/domains;
participants; roles; experimental groups
• Domain #1) eBay Data
 100 posts, 10 sessions
 3-way exchanges
 Roles are identifiable
(neutral, seller, buyer)

29. E-commerce: LIWC
1.5
Automated Text Analysis
1
0.5
Neurtal
0 Seller
Buyer
-0.5
-1

30. LIWC Analysis
Mediator (neutral) Negotiator
vs. (Seller, Buyer)
+ less self-reference + more self-reference
+ less negative emotion + more negative emotion
+ less cognitive words + more cognitive words
+ more articles (precise) + less article use
+ more big-word use + less big-word use
(i.e., abstract)

31. Faculty Dialogue: Analysis Across Phases
Coh-Metrix

32. Faculty Dialogue: Analysis Across Phases
Coh-Metrix
Overview and Discussion Phases:
+ highly used negative connection
+ high lexical co-reference
+ less negation use
+ low similarity in meaning
+ simple syntax
Impasse and (non-)Resolution Phases:
+ less used negative connection
+ low lexical co-reference
+ more negation use
+ high similarity in meaning
+ complex syntax

33. End
33

34. Extra slides…
34