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A lthough trust in online environments has been studied in fields such as e-commerce and virtual teams, online deliberation tools did not take much attention. The context dependent nature and dynamic characteristics of trust constitute the basis of this study aiming at measuring and analyzing trust in different media. The model in this exploratory paper is used to perform a comparative study on three online deliberation technologies: forum, wiki and argumentation. The focus is on Collaboratorium, an online deliberation tool initiated by the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT aiming at solving wicked problems through collaboration and argumentation techniques. We posit that trust has influence on satisfaction; consequently it is critical to consider trust and its determinants in the design of a new Internet collaborative platform. In this respect, our objective is to compare the above three different alternative technologies in terms of users’ trust and the way it influences user satisfaction.
Finally this would outline implications for the design of future internet-based deliberation platforms.
1.
Introduction
In past years research on trust took attention particularly in online domains such as virtual teams, online shopping or P2P networks. Lack of social cues and face to face interaction prompted researchers to better understand how trust is formed in spite of various risks as opportunism in online shopping, virus attacks in
P2P networks or knowledge appropriation in virtual teams.
Different from previous researches, this exploratory paper investigates the influence of trust on online deliberation tools. Interactive e-learning, online chat, blogging, forums, online deliberative polls 1 and wikis (i.e. Wikipedia) constitute a wide range of media each characterized by different levels of structure and ways of operation. This exploratory paper deals with two of the above, wiki and forum, in addition to a new tool being tested, called Collaboratorium. Collaboratorium is an online argumentation tool designed for better structuring deliberations compared to many other disorganized media.
Forums and wikis are opportunities for the silent majority to express themselves and deliberate openly.
However they are also prone to various inefficiencies such as redundant discussions where the same content of arguments is entered in different words, or overcrowding of the atmosphere by controversial, fervent issues leading to conflicts like the editing wars of Wikipedia. Online argumentation on the other hand, lets participants define the set of questions to answer, and supporting or opposing arguments making it systematic 2 . As Rahwan et al 3 put it, tools like forums and blogs are not structured enough, required to show how different arguments are connected to each other and to the deliberation as a whole whereas argumentation enables better navigation and visualization thanks to its structured nature. Therefore, online argumentation could be a valid alternative option to come up with a collaborative solution to ill-structured problems.
1 University of Naples Federico II, Dept. of Business and Managerial Engineering, Naples, Italy
2 Corresponding author, University of Naples Federico II, Dept. of Business and Managerial Engineering, Naples,
Italy luca.iandoli@unina.it

2.
Research and theoretical foundations
2.1.
Trust
Jarvenpaa et al 4 showed that communication and trust had a positive influence on the satisfaction of global virtual teams formed by students. Similarly, Kim et al observed a positive relation between trust and satisfaction for Korean college students 5 . Consequently we claim that the evaluation of trust level and its determinants can have remarkable implications for the design of a new Internet collaborative platform.
Second, it is important to compare the trust level assigned by users to a new tool with those assigned to existing technologies such as forums and wiki.
Trust is the intention of the online deliberation participant to be vulnerable 6 , based on her positive expectations 7 about the outcome. Trust is dependent on the relationship between the trustor and the trustee which is shaped by the interaction between attitudes and values of parties. This interaction is also contingent on emotions as posited by Jones and George 8 .
In a quantitative manner, the decision to engage in a transaction can be expressed as a function of
“minimum credence”. Minimum credence represents the barrier to surpass for a transaction to happen.
Corresponding relationship can be theorized as “C=K+T” where C stands for credence, K for the degree of certainty in the possible transaction and T for the level of trust substituting the uncertain component. In a usual situation, there would be a gap due to the uncertainty about the outcome of the transaction. If the threshold is above the K component of credence, transaction depends on the level of trust. We benefit threshold view in the following to elucidate differing conditions of separate contexts.
Trust has been categorized in terms of various aspects covered by behavioral, economic, sociological, psychological and institutional views. Following the classification of McKnight et al 9 calculative, experience-based and institutional are distinguished. Calculative trust is based on transaction cost theory where the trust is the outcome of rational cost-benefit analyses 10 .
Finally institution-based trust is the trust in a third party concretized by norms, regulations and sanctions, in other words, it is the impersonal trust 11 .
2.2.
Structure-conditioned trust
Trust is context dependent as pointed out by Rousseau 12 . We may judge individuals as being a good person but not reliable at work. This separative view of contexts is expressed by “relations” by Sheppard and Sherman (1998) 13 . Lewick et al 14 take the this view one step further and claim that trust and distrust, which are separate dimensions, can coexist for a trustor-trustee dyad. They posit that both reduce complexity; the former by allowing desirable behavior to be considered as certain and the latter by allowing undesirable behavior as probable. In this study we define context as a contingent space of action determined by a set of social, technological and environmental constraints . For an online deliberation tool, the environment is given by the information space made available through the tool by the other participants, the technological constraints are given by the technological characteristics and functionalities of the tool, the social constraints refer to the rules followed by the community.
Trust literature spans two kinds of studies regarding the way trust influences attitudes. Some studies use trust as a factor having a direct effect on attitudes while it is construed as a moderator in others. In an environment where the level of structure is weak, trust has a direct influence on attitudes whereas it has a moderating effect in stronger situations 15 . A structure is considered weak when incentive, guidance and

normative expectations of behavior are unclear or lacking yielding to unshared goals among individuals 16
17 . Accordingly, Mischel 18 posits that behavior is a function of the situation rather than of personality in strong situations.
3.
Trust-based Comparison of Tools
3.1 The proposed model
We expect trust to have a positive influence on the level of participants’ satisfactions in using collaborative tools. We are interested in comparing the three different technologies in terms of trusts level.
Argumentation is inherent in every statement wherever there is an opinion, comment or fact stated even if it is not given in an organized manner. Being a design component, we believe that this has consequences in trust formation. It is shown that the perceived credibility of a website may depend on visual appearance and design 19 . Kim and Benbasat 20 show the influence of Toulmin’s argumentation model in developing trust for online stores. The more the argumentation gets comprehensive through the inclusion of data and backing elements, the more people exhibit trusting belief compared to claim-only arguments. In a similar vein, Gregor and Benbasat 21 observed that explanations conforming to Toulmin’s model had a positive effect on the perceptions of knowledge-based systems namely; trust, agreement with conclusions, perceived usefulness, satisfaction and acceptance. IT systems come along with their risks also. Even if not prevalent as in an online store where money is risked, there might be concerns on the proper functioning of voting mechanism in an environment like Collaboratorium. To support the trustworthiness of an automated medical care system Gorski et 22 al use a UML based argumentation structure. Consequently, we expect to see a positive affect of complete argumentation structures on people’s trust on the whole system and among the three tools tested, Collaboration has the most complete argumentation structure.
Proposition : Trust level of people for Collaboratorium will be higher than their trust for wiki and forum.
However we want also to test if and to which extent the Collaboratorium outperforms wikies and forums in each trust dimensions (calculative, experience-based, institutional). Measures on each trust dimension can provide useful indications for the improvement of the design of the Collaboratorium.
3.2 Measures
Table 1 develops the discussion in sections 2 for trust in an online deliberation environment showing that an online deliberation tool can be conceived as a matrix of contextual constructs (information, technology and community) and trust types. The context axis of the matrix is more specific due to its nature. An online deliberation tool’s technology needs to earn people’s trust to the extent it relies on computational mechanisms and algorithms such as voting mechanisms (i.e. online stores) or the selection of editors (i.e. open source projects). People can look at technological aspects of the tool from a calculative perspective concerning the benefits of using a new tool, gaining a new skill versus learning costs. From an experiencebased point of view, one would evaluate the good functioning of the tool in the past (technical failures, computational errors etc.). The institutional trust for technology is formed on the basis of support given for the use the new technology (i.e. efficiency of the help menu) and sanctions on the abuse of defects that might exist in the tool. An online deliberation tool is a point of reference for information seekers as well.
Expected benefits and costs from the use of that information, experienced results of the previously used information, sanction and incentives about information sharing correspond to calculative, experience-

based and institutional trusts respectively. Finally community constitutes the third context. Calculative reasoning of people deals with the expected costs and benefits of being a member of the deliberation community, experienced-based trust tackles the experienced effects of being a member of the community and institutional trust assesses the reliability of control measures on members’ behaviors.
The importance of cells in the matrix will be measured through survey questions to be prepared in view of previous research. The outcome of the survey will let us assess the importance of different context-trust couples giving also an idea on the implied thresholds to surpass for each one of them. Finally the results will constitute a reference point for future designs to further the trustworthiness of the tool.
Table 1 - Trust - Context matrix of an online deliberation tool
Calculative Experience-based Institutional
Information Benefits
 Expected information gain
 Expected development of critical thinking
Risks
 Expected loss of private knowledge

Probability of conflicts, disputes
Costs
 Expected time to spend for research before posting and to post the ready knowledge
 Expected time to spend to find required knowledge among present postings
Technology Benefits
 Advantages of learning a new tool: career, facilitating real world experiences
(homework, researches etc.)
Risks

Efforts turning out be useless due to inaccurate computing technology (i.e. algorithms of rating calculation, voting
 mechanisms)
Inefficient deliberation method used
Costs
 Expected time to spend to learn using the tool (ease of use)
 Expected time to spend to understand
 mechanisms (voting, editor election)
Expected time to spend and money paid to install the software (if necessary)
Community Benefits

Image gain from future good reputation of the community
 Self satisfaction by citizenship
Risks
 Image loss due to a future bad
 reputation
Future conflicts and disputes (i.e. editing wars)
Costs

Time lost for disputes, governance (for editors)
Frequency of information postings that are
 unrelated
 unsupported
 one sided
 wrong
 related
 backed (by an authority, experiment etc.)
 objective



Frequency of abuse of flaws in technology, mechanisms
Perceived efficiency of the tool
Good functioning of the tool
 Frequency of conflicts, propagandas, social
 interactions
Good functioning of community relationships
 Cancellation of user account
 incentives:
 Rewards on quality postings

Perceived effectiveness of sanctions in case of abuse of flaws in
 technology
 mechanisms (rating, voting for decision making…)
Perceived effectiveness of incentives to use the mechanisms
(i.e. voting) and technology (the tool itself):
 Obligation
 Help support

Perceived effectiveness of sanctions in case of disinformation:
Temporary prevention of access
Perceived effectiveness of
Giving responsibility, assigning editorship
Perceived effectiveness of
 preventive social norms: praising cooperative culture, constructive deliberation, democracy, respect to others’ thoughts… sanctioning norms: flaming, neglecting
Perceived meritocracy in the functioning of mechanisms
(voting for decision funneling, electing editors…)

In order to conduct the survey, items for each variable will be developed starting from and customizing previous research for the requirements of online deliberation tools (sources for some of the items are:
Gefen et al. 2003 23 ; McKnight et al. 2002 24 ; Garbarino and Johnson, 1999 25 ). Previous works on virtual teams, online shopping, online reverse auctions and organizations constitute a wide area of reference.
While this helps us found our work on a sound basis, the results of this study will develop the research on trust in online environments, by adding online deliberation tools to the chain of studies. Results will also help us improve the design of future versions of Collaboratorium to achieve the target of benefiting the wisdom of crowds for the solution of ill structured problems. We will have knowledge on which trust types will be essential in which context.
4.
Future work
A field experiment to be held in April 2008 is going to provide us with the opportunity to compare three types of online deliberation tools, two of which are taken from traditional examples (forum and wiki). The third tool is Collaboratorium. To test the above proposition, three groups of about one hundred students each will deliberate on the same wicked problem where each one will be assigned a separate one among forum, wiki and Collaboratorium tools.
This study will have three major contributions. Firstly, it will help us develop our understanding of trust in a different online environment. Secondly, it will provide a comparison of the three deliberation tools.
Third, we will develop a methodology to measure on-line trust taking into account its contextual nature, which will be a reference point for designing online deliberation media which can better benefit the trust of participants.

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