An Architecture for a Smart Fourth Party in an Online Dispute Resolution Platform

Abstract

Disputes involve two different people or parties. Because of cost or time constraints, the two parties may wish to avoid a lengthy court case and, instead, involve a mediator or arbitrator to help them resolve the dispute. This mediator or arbitrator is often called the third party with the two original participants being called the first and second parties. As this mediation or arbitration process becomes an online process (as in the case of Online Depute Resolution - ODR), the platform used for the ODR has been called the Fourth Party. This paper looks at a technology architecture for creating such a Fourth Party. This paper looks at different types of Alternate Dispute Resolution systems. The paper then progresses to ODR systems. Different facilities of various ODR systems are itemised and a few examples of ODR systems which have already been used or developed are described. A brief disussion of a pilot program is provided including comments about the data which was collected during this pilot. Finally, a proposed IT architecture is provided for an ODR system including a fully fledged Fourth Party as defined by Katsh and Rifkin – including algorithmic support.