This letter describes the design and implementation of a distributed meeting scheduling system in which each user has an intelligent agent in their computer desktop which is responsible for arranging meetings. Knowing the preferences and commitments of their user, the agents negotiate with one another to find the most acceptable meeting times. Introduction: It is widely believed that the next generation of computer desktop applications will be significantly more proactive in helping users achieve their goals than those which currently exist [1, 2] . Rather than the user having to specify each and every step of a given task, the desktop of the future will be composed of a series of intelligent agents to which a number of high level tasks can be delegated. These agents will be responsible for autonomously deciding how the task is to be achieved and actually performing the necessary set of actions (including handling possible interactions with other intelligent agents). Examples of the types of functionality which will be supported include: filtering electronic mail, monitoring Internet newsgroups and reporting back interesting discussions, and discovering new data repositories on the information superhighway. This letter reports on the design and implementation of a particular agent-based application which arranges meetings. This application turns the currently available electronic calendar management systems (such as Organiser or UNIX's Calendar Manager) from passive information repositories in which a user simply records his personal schedule into active and empowered applications which can negotiate on behalf of their user to arrange meetings according to a set of expressed preferences. This work represents an advance over previous research prototypes (eg [3, 4, 5]) in that it deals with the postponement and rescheduling of meetings as well as their effective scheduling in a dynamic and changing environment. It is an advance over currently available calendar management products (such as Meeting Maker and MS-Schedule+) in that it is the agents, and not the humans, which manage and enact the negotiation process.
One of the earliest agent-based meeting scheduling applications is reported by Jennings and Jackson REF , according to which each participant is "represented" by a meeting scheduling agent (MSA), managing its user's calendar.
Agent-based Meeting Scheduling: A Design and Implementation
Electronics Letters
Computer Science