Knowledge management, knowledge work, desktop metaphor, information and communication technologies


The desktop had been used for decades to administer small amounts of documents. The desktop view was sufficient as long as the type of contents of the documents, the number of users accessing these documents as well as the size of the collections were limited. Today, the desktop provides only a restricted view to the large amount of data, including documents. Due to the increase of the size and the complexity of data we face today, much of the original desktop’s functionality has moved into complex applications, e.g., web browsers. Thus, the desktop is being replaced in many situations as the central view to collections of data. This has resulted in today’s scenario where we have many applications with many different views on parts of the data we have, with many categorizations of these data, and with isolated and incompatible views on these data.

We will elaborate on the changed situation in which computers are used in today’s knowledge-intensive organizations and extract the primary requirements for the design of a new user interface. We will analyze the shortcomings of the desktop for tasks of “knowledge workers” and motivate its replacement by what we call infotop, a new metaphor to interact with personal knowledge environments. The scenario of an individual knowledge worker using advanced mechanisms for communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing within a network of knowledge workers will drive our approach.

Personal Knowledge Environments

Publications

R. Maier, J. Sametinger: A Top-Level Ontology for Smart Document Access, ICKM 2007, 4th International Conference on Knowledge Management, Vienna, Austria, 27-28 August 2007.
DOI: 10.1142/9789812770592_0014
Conference Article
R. Maier, J. Sametinger: Personal Knowledge Management in a Peer-to-Peer Environment, ECKM 2004: The 5th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (CNAM), Paris, France, September 30 - Oktober 1, 2004.
Conference Article
R. Maier, J. Sametinger: Peer-to-Peer Information Workspaces in Infotop, International Journal on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Special Issue on Best Papers from SEKE03, Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2004.
DOI: 10.1142/s0218194004001531
Journal Article
R. Maier, J. Sametinger: Infotop - A Shared-context Information Workspace, SEKE2003, 15th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, San Francisco Bay, USA, July 1- 3, 2003.
Conference Article
R. Maier, J. Sametinger: A Shared-Context Information Workspace to Support Knowledge Processes, Short Paper, CAiSE 03, 15th Conference On Advanced Information Systems Engineering, Klagenfurt/Velden, Austria, June 16-20, 2003.
Conference Article
R. Maier, J. Sametinger: Infotop - An Information and Communication Infrastructure for Knowledge Work, ECKM2002, The 3rd European Conference on Knowledge Management, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, September 24-25, 2002.
Conference Article