... This article presents Answer Garden, a system for growing organizational memory. The article describes the system and its underlying implementation. It then presents findings from a field study of Answer Garden. The article discusses the usage data and qualitative evaluations from the field study, and then draws a set of lessons for next-generation organizational memory systems.

Interfaces to databases have traditionally been designed as single-user systems that hide other users and their activity. This paper aims to show that collaboration is an important aspect of searching online information stores that requires explicit computerised support. The claim is made that a truly user-centred system must acknowledge and support collaborative interactions between users. Collaborative working implies a need to share information: both the search product and the search process. Searches need not be restricted to inanimate resources but people can also search for other people. The ARIADNE system is introduced as an example of computerised support for collaboration between browsers. A number of systems offering varied approaches to supporting collaboration are surveyed and a structure for analysing the various aspects of collaboration is applied.

As the application of computer technology continues to proliferate and diversify, the identification and understanding of application domains is becoming increasingly important to software development methodologies. Domain analysis techniques have been developed to accumulate and formalize the knowledge necessary for successful software reuse. These techniques have been shown to be useful, but suffer from defining the domain too restrictively, burying important relationships deep in domain taxonomies, and prohibiting flexible identification of domains with common issues. Techniques are needed that dynamically detect recurring patterns of activities in development projects. This paper presents a method for developing and refining the knowledge and experience accumulated by a development organization so it can learn from previous efforts. A case-based repository of project experiences supports the re-use and refinement of domain knowledge to reduce duplicate effort, build on successful e...

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Reflecting the growing consensus that principles and methods for developing effective interfaces are beginning to mature, usability design guidelines have begun to proliferate. But current approaches to guidelines tend to either be technology-centric, focusing on platform-specific interface widgets, or abstract and general-purpose. At best, these general guidelines provide weak support that is insufficient to support developers faced with specific interface design problems targeted for specific user populations. If the potential of usability guidelines as an interface design technique is to be fully realized, they need to be augmented with context-specific guidelines and examples that synthesize isolated guidelines into domain-specific solutions to design problems. In this paper, we present a method in which software development organizations can develop and evolve domain-specific guidelines based on the kinds of applications they develop. The method facilitates the process of determin...

Multimedia information retrieval is a challenging problem because multimedia information is not inherently structured. Jabber is an experimental system that attempts to bring some structure to this task. Jabber allows users to retrieve records of videoconferences based upon the concepts discussed. In this paper we introduce ConceptFinder, a sub-system within Jabber, and show how it is able to process the spoken text of a meeting into meeting topics. ConceptFinder can make subtle distinctions among different senses of the same words, and is able to summarize a set of related words, giving a name to each topic. Users can then use this name to query or browse the stored multimedia, through Jabber's user interface. By presenting information that closely matches a user's expectations, the challenge of multimedia retrieval is rendered more tractable. Keywords Multimedia indexing, information retrieval and browsing, concept clustering INTRODUCTION Multimedia holds tremendous appeal becau...

The subject of this research is development of an evolving automated FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) answering system that provides pre-stored answers to user questions asked in ordinary English. The natural language processing technique developed for FAQ retrieval does not analyze user queries; instead, analysis is applied to FAQs in the database long before any user queries are submitted. Thus, the work of FAQ retrieval is reduced to keyword matching without inferring; the system still creates an illusion of intelligence. Additional research is done in order to process phrases. The system is designed for ordinary websites such as those belonging to university laboratories, software developers, etc. Introduction People sitting in front of their computers expect quick solutions. People browsing a website want to get quick answers to their questions. In order to enable the latter, an evolving WWW-based automated FAQ answering system, which provides pre-stored answers to us...

Most of the available knowledge management systems pay little attention to two important aspects: the need of supporting emerging communities of interest together with the official organizational structure; and the need of cluing together knowledge associated with any kind of involved entity including people, communities, and informal knowledge. The MILK system enhances knowledge discovery and sharing by providing services addressing these aspects and supplying innovative interfaces and interaction styles. The goal of MILK is to become a familiar environment integrated in the every-day activities of dynamic modern workers. To meet the users ’ needs, the solution proposed by MILK roots in ethnographic analysis capturing the common practices within an organization.

Software development is a knowledge-intensive activity involving the integration of diverse knowledge sources that undergo constant change. The volatility of knowledge in software development requires that knowledge bases are able to support a continuous knowledge acquisition process where tools are available that can make use of partial knowledge. To address these issues, case-based technology is used in combination with an organizational learning process to create an approach that turns Standard Development Methodologies (SDM) into living documents that capture project experiences and emerging requirements as they are encountered in an organization. A rule-based system is used to tailor the SDM to meet the characteristics of individual projects and provide relevant development knowledge throughout the development lifecycle.

As usability knowledge and techniques continues to grow, there is an increasing need to provide tools that disseminate the accumulated wisdom of the field. Usability guidelines are one technique that is used to convey usability knowledge. Another is the emerging discipline of usability patterns. This paper presents an approach that combines these techniques in a case-based architecture and utilizes a process to help an organization capture, adapt, and refine usability resources from project experiences. The approach utilizes a rule-based tool to represent the circumstances under which a given usability resource is applicable. Characteristics of the application under development are captured and used to match usability resources to the project where they can be used to drive the design process. Design reviews are used to capture feedback and ensure that the repository remains a vital knowledge source for producing useful and usable software systems. 1