Self-organisation denotes the spontaneous creation of a globally coherent pattern out of local interactions. More specifically, it is used if a system is capable of the formation of a system structure based on interactions, reporting, or delegation of control that originates within the system itself (Heylighen et al., 2001). This formation is, however, usually the result of a designed self-organisation algorithm. Di Marzo Serugendo et al. (2005) differentiate "weak self-organisation" in which a centralised component within the system is responsible for the creation of structure, usually with global information, and "strong self-organisation" in which structure is formed in a distributed process, usually with only local information.

Bibliography

Heylighen, F. et al. ‘The science of self-organization and adaptivity’. In The Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, volume 5(3), pp. 253–280 (2001). PDF
Di Marzo Serugendo, Giovanna, Marie-Pierre Gleizes, and Anthony Karageorgos. ‘Self-organization in multi-agent systems’. In Knowledge Engineering Review, volume 20(2), pp. 165–189 (June 2005). DOI