Instrumenting Multi-agent Organisations with Artifacts to Support Reputation Processes

Abstract : Reputation is often cited as an instrument to enforce norm compliance: agents that do not follow the norms have their reputation decreased. Conceiving reputation as a collective process, i.e. a kind of shared voices as proposed by Conte & Paolucci, is not a simple task. In this paper, we propose a first step in this direction by instrumenting multi-agent organisation with an artifact that publishes some objective evaluations of the performance of the agents with respect to their behaviour within the organisation. The members of the organisation can then read these evaluations and build up their reputation of others. The artifact serves thus as an instrument that aid in the building of the reputation of the agents. We propose that the evaluation of the agents is not simply based on their obedience to norms, but also considers their pro-activeness and their contribution to the success of collective tasks that are being executed in the organisation. This proposal is detailed and exemplified in the context of the oise + organisational model supported by a set of organisational artifacts as proposed in the ora4mas approach.