Knowledge acquisition using Group Support Systems

This paper reports on a project in which a Group Support System (GSS) was used to ‘acquire knowledge’ from seven European cities with respect to the interactions between risk events faced by the cities. The aim of the project was to develop a Risk Systemicity Questionnaire (RSQ) which is an interactive tool designed to support cities in improving their resilience. A series of GSS workshops was organized in which participants co-created the risk scenarios that formed the main content of the tool. This paper presents an approach to using a GSS to inform specific research questions rather than to develop new solutions which participants can take ownership of and implement immediately in their work. In turn, the use of GSS in such non-traditional context poses a number of important methodological considerations of which GSS facilitators should be aware.