An Introduction to the KAPSARC Toolkit for Behavioral Analysis (KTAB)

About the Project

KAPSARC is developing the KAPSARC Toolkit for Behavioral Analysis (KTAB), an open source software platform, to support modeling and analysis of collective decision making processes (CDMPs). KTAB is intended to be the standard platform for analyzing bargaining problems, generalized voting models, and policy decision making. It is our intent to use KTAB to assemble the building blocks for a broad class of CDMPs. Typical models in KTAB will draw on the insights of subject matter experts regarding decision makers and influencers in a methodical, consistent manner; and then assist researchers to identify feasible outcomes that are the result of CDMPs.

Summary

KTAB is freely available, state-of-the-art software that has been designed to enable the rigorous and systematic analysis of Collective Decision Making Processes (CDMPs).

KTAB is being designed with three types of users in mind. The program code is available directly for computer programmers. Power users will be able to construct their own specific models based on the existing structure, and applied users will be able to access pre-built models through a simple graphical user interface.

Collective decision making processes are those in which a group of individual actors interact to arrive at a single decision. Common examples include the deliberations of corporate boards. These processes have usually been studied in a purely qualitative fashion, but there is a growing body of evidence which suggests that computer models can deliver additional insights. KTAB is being designed to unlock these additional insights for a broader range of analysts, but its release is also hoped to extend the awareness of computer models as a route to the investigation of CDMPs, and to prompt a wider acceptance and uptake of a quantitative approach to such analyses.