In particular, we argue that a joint activity is one that is performed by individuals sharing certain specific mental properties. We show how these properties affect and are affected by properties of the participants. Regarding the benefits of teamwork, we show that in return for the overhead involved in participating in a joint activity, an agent expects to be able to share the load in achieving a goal in a way that is robust against certain possible failures and misunderstandings. A Tool for Collaborative Ontology Construction . We have developed a set of tools and services to support the process of achieving consensus on common shared ontologies by geographically distributed groups.
Users can quickly assemble a new ontology from a library of modules.
We discuss how our system was constructed, how it exploits existing protocols and browsing tools, and our experience supporting hundreds of users. We describe applications using our tools to achieve con-sensus on ontologies and to integrate information. Gathering Information from Heterogeneous Information Sources . Eckerd College, 1996. The Internet provides dramatic new opportunities for gathering information from multiple, distributed, heterogeneous information sources.