Stakeholder engagement, collaboration, or participation, shared learning or fact-finding, have become buzz words and hardly any environmental assessment or modelling effort today can be presented without some kind of reference to stakeholders and their involvement in the process. This is clearly a positive development, but in far too many cases stakeholders have merely been paid lip service and their engagement has consequentially been quite nominal. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that better decisions are implemented with less conflict and more success when they are driven by stakeholders, that is by those who will be bearing their consequences. Participatory modelling, with its various types and clones, has emerged as a powerful tool that can (a) enhance the stakeholders knowledge and understanding of a system and its dynamics under various conditions, as in collaborative learning, and (b) identify and clarify the impacts of solutions to a given problem, usually related to supporting decision making, policy, regulation or management. In this overview paper we first look at the different types of stakeholder modelling, and compare participatory modelling to other frameworks that involve stakeholder participation. Based on that and on the experience of the projects reported in this issue and elsewhere, we draw some lessons and generalisations. We conclude with an outline of some future directions.

Position Paper: Modelling with stakeholders

Context: In a previous study, we reported on a systematic literature review (SLR), based on a manual search of 13 journals and conferences undertaken in the period 1st January 2004 to 30th June 2007. Objective: The aim of this on-going research is to provide an annotated catalogue of SLRs available to software engineering researchers and practitioners. This study updates our previous study using a broad automated search. Method: We performed a broad automated search to find SLRs published in the time period 1st January 2004 to 30th June 2008. We contrast the number, quality and source of these SLRs with SLRs found in the original study. Results: Our broad search found an additional 35 SLRs corresponding to 33 unique studies. Of these papers, 17 appeared relevant to the undergraduate educational curriculum and 12 appeared of possible interest to practitioners. The number of SLRs being published is increasing. The quality of papers in conferences and workshops has improved as more researchers use SLR guidelines. Conclusion: SLRs appear to have gone past the stage of being used solely by innovators but cannot yet be considered a main stream software engineering research methodology. They are addressing a wide range of topics but still have limitations, such as often failing to assess primary study quality.

https://romisatriawahono.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Kitchenham-Systematic-literature-reviews-in-software-engineering-%E2%80%93-A-tertiary-study-2012.pdf

Systematic literature reviews in software engineering - A tertiary study

Societal transitions involve multiple actors, changes in institutions, values and technologies, and interactions across multiple sectors and scales. Given this complexity, this paper takes on the view that the societal transitions research field would benefit from the further maturation and broader uptake of modelling approaches. This paper shows how modelling can enhance the understanding of and support stakeholders to steer societal transitions. It discusses the benefits modelling provides for studying large societal systems and elaborates on different ways models can be used for transitions studies. Two model applications are presented in some detail to illustrate the benefits. Then, limitations of modelling societal transitions are discussed, which leads to an agenda for future activities: (1) better cooperation in the development of dynamic models, (2) stronger interaction with other transition scholars and stakeholders, and (3) use of additional modelling approaches that we think are relevant to and largely unexplored in transitions studies.

https://epub.wupperinst.org/files/5923/5923_Holtz.pdf

Prospects of modelling societal transitions : position paper of an emerging community

Homework question 1 a) What is BLAS? b) What is LAPACK? c) How were these packages initially programmed? d) Why might you pay for a BLAS and Lapack implementation even though some are freely available? e) Find a webpage and/or a paper which describes a parallel implementation of a BLAS or LAPACK routine and summarize what is done, in particular how is parallelizm implemented. f) How are BLAS functions used in machine learning or some other application area that you find interesting?

Building blocks

Empowering marginalized communities in water resources management: addressing inequitable practices in Participatory Model Building.

Modelling is a key activity in conceptual design and system design. Through collaborative modelling, end-users, stakeholders, experts and entrepreneurs are able to create shared understanding about a system representation. This paper reports on a literature review to provide an overview of the commonalities and differences in collaborative modelling research. We develop a framework of analysis and conduct a quantitative meta-analysis to understand the challenges in collaborative modelling. Next, we performed a qualitative analysis to further elicit these challenges and discuss requirements for tools to support collaborative modelling, using Group Support Systems (GSSs) or Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs). We found critical challenges in supporting the understanding and adoption of modelling rules, and in integration of sub-models and different perspectives of systems to achieve shared understanding visualised in a system representation.

Challenges in collaborative modelling: a literature review and research agenda

Modeling is a key activity in conceptual design and system design. Users as well as stakeholders, experts and entrepreneurs need to be able to create shared understanding about a system representation. In this paper we conducted a literature review to provide an overview of studies in which collaborative modeling efforts have been conducted to give first insights in the challenges of collaborative modeling, specifically with respect to group composition, collaboration & participation methods, modeling methods and quality in collaborative modeling. We found a critical challenge in dealing with the lack of modeling skills, such as having a modeler to support the group, or create the model for the group versus training to empower participants to actively participate in the modeling effort, and another critical challenge in resolving conflicting (parts of) models and integration of submodels or models from different perspectives. The overview of challenges presented in this paper will inspire the design of methods and support systems that will ultimately advance the efficiency and effectiveness of collaborative modeling tasks.

Challenges in Collaborative Modeling: A Literature Review

Modeling is a key activity in conceptual design and system design. Users as well as stakeholders, experts and entrepreneurs need to be able to create shared understanding about a system representation. Technology like interactive whiteboards may provide new opportunities in the support of collaborative modeling. We conduct an exploratory research on experiences in using interactive whiteboards in collaborative modeling, based on semi-structured interviews. This paper offers a first overview of advantages and disadvantages of interactive whiteboards and creates a research agenda to explore how process support can help in harvesting the efficiency gain that we believe can be achieved using this technology.

Using Interactive Whiteboard Technology to Support Collaborative Modeling

Collaborative effort is necessary to achieve value when input from multiple stakeholders is required. In order to deal with the complexity of information shared in collaborative efforts, groups need to organize the information they process. In this paper we present a frame of reference in terms of key concepts of organizing in order to spark thinking which will answer key questions about the nature of organizing. We link organizing to modeling by defining it as an essential modeling activity. We investigate this link approaches in collaborative modeling. Through the definition of modeling we are able to discuss a research agenda for the organize pattern in terms of model syntax and semantics, and organizing processes, outcomes, and measurement.

Michiel Renger

Papers

Challenges in collaborative modelling: a literature review and research agenda

Challenges in Collaborative Modeling: A Literature Review

Using Interactive Whiteboard Technology to Support Collaborative Modeling

Fundamental Topics of Organizing: A Research Agenda