Inspire is a Web-based system for support and conduct of negotiations. This system is flexible and used in several ways. As a training tool, especially for ESL engineering students this system plays two important roles: improving negotiation skills for the professional future and improving English language skills as well. This report outlines the negotiation methodology embedded in it and discusses how the two roles work for ESL engineering students. Consequently, based on my experience, I will recommend INSPIRE, to the instructors whose students are ESL engineering students, as a good training tool for teaching purposes. At the end, some strengths and weaknesses of the system will also be discussed and some suggestions will be given for further research.

Introduction

Background: INSPIRE is a Web-based negotiation support system. This system is flexible and can be used as a game, decision support tool, negotiation simulator or research and training tool. This new product changes the way of traditional negotiation: both parties must no longer meet at the same time and place. In fact, INSPIRE is a software that allows negotiations to be carried out over internet. During the period, Jan 24. 1999 - Feb 14. 1999, I was involved in such a negotiation as a student of the 21.195 course. I experienced the whole procedure, pre-negotiation, conduct, post-negotiation and concentrated on the use of language development, negotiation skills to engineering students and tried to give suggestions to the future instructors of this course and to help them use this as a training tool.

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the INSPIRE system as a training tool for ESL engineering students and recommend it to the instructors of the course 21.195.

Scope

There are two major criteria here:

1. Usefulness to language teaching
2. Negotiation training tool

During the period Jan 24. 1999 - Feb 14.1999, I was involved in the Cypress Cycles Negotiation. Cypress Cycles is a small manufacturer of expensive mountain bikes. My task was to negotiate as a representative of Cypress Cycles company to buy rear wheel gear assemblies from Itex company whose representative was called Klimms. In the pre-negotiation stage INSPIRE provided me with several tables with the four issues and all the items I needed to negotiate on and my ratings for them. It was of great importance for negotiators to set up the reservation level which is the worst level I can accept and the aspiration level which is the level I will try to achieve during the negotiation. After the pre-negotiation part, I was very clear about my overall goal and made a plan on how to achieve my goal in the negotiation. The next step was conduct of negotiation, I was lucky and got out first with my first offer, in a polite manner, representing my company and myself. In the first offer, I gave the best conditions for which my rating was 100. After that, my counterpart and I exchanged several rounds of offers and messages to try to compromise on some items to reach an agreement. However, I pointed out later that we both concentrated on the price and return conditions and we did not care about delivery and payment conditions. Although we tried to soften up on some conditions. We still could not reach an agreement in this negotiation.

Recommendation

Based on the criteria for negotiation skills development I had a good experience with the negotiation an studied how to make decisions. For language skills, I learned to write negotiation journals and read and understand instructions. So overall, I will recommend INSPIRE to the instructors of the ESL course for engineering students. INSPIRE is a good training tool for teaching purposes.

Discussion

My experience with the INSPIRE system led me to think that there are some points to be discussed here. Inspire system: The biggest advantage of this system is that it totally changes the way of traditional negotiation. The new client server technology means that it is not necessary for parties to negotiate in real time. The other advantage is that it provides tables, graphs so that negotiation becomes easier. On the other hand, the system is almost too easy to use and sometimes restrictive.

Attitude: During such negotiations the parties sides can not meet each other and the names given are not real so the negotiators may not have serious attitudes towards the negotiation. Based on the above points I will suggest that a further research of this system is needed to improve this fast-growing world wide system.

Conclusion

Overall I will recommend INSPIRE because it is a good training tool for the course 21.195.

*Please note, that this report was written by a first year engineering student enrolled in an Advanced English as Second Language course. This report has been revised by the student two times and then edited. Although it still has some language flaws it received a mark of 86%. The following criteri a were used for marking: