A multi-agent based method for handling exceptions in computer supported cooperative design

Focusing on exceptions that occur frequently in Computer Supported Cooperative Design (CSCD), the definition and classification of the exceptions are presented. According to expected and unexpected characteristics of exceptions, three methods are proposed: (1) expected exceptions are automatically dealt with by using Agent Message Event Rule (AMER) during the execution of collaboration processes; (2) document related exceptions were dealt with by adopting Document Tracking Log; (3) the cause of unexpected collaboration exceptions (UCE) is analyzed by using the algorithm of similarity-matching based on knowledge for mining exception cases in order to get the solution of similar exceptions. A prototype system, CoopDesigner, based on the proposed methods, is presented at the end of the paper.