In a Greek city, the “agora” is an open place in the middle of town where citizens come together for all kinds of public purposes. Our AGORA provides a space to interact with others, to engage the representation and discussion of a diversity of perspectives, to develop and refine positions in social interaction, and to clarify controversies by visualizing the best possible argumentation for each point of view. The AGORA is a virtual online world in which users can walk around, find interesting discussions in which they can participate, or create their own topics for a debate.

Positions are mainly represented in the form of argument maps. These maps visualize the structure of reasons and background assumptions on which claims are based. These visualizations of reasoning motivate objections and critique which again lead to further justifications or the refinement of the original argument.

AGORA’s user interface provides scaffolding and guidance by offering a selection of logically valid argument schemes and other templates. This will improve deliberators’ reasoning skills without stifling their agency and creativity.

AGORA web applications can be implemented in projects that focus on:

• Participatory democracy on the global, national, or local level (e.g., NIFPAD, the National Ignition Facility for Participatory Democracy)
• Scientific problems that require large-scale or interdisciplinary collaboration and debate
• Collaborative structuring of knowledge domains
• Conflict management
• Educating the next generation of critical thinkers.