Modeling shared information spaces (SIS)

ABSTRACT

Many companies experience that their corporate intranet is getting complex and poorly manageable. We believe that developing a model for the website, or shared information space will make the management easier and provide solutions that support collaboration and knowledge sharing within the enterprise. The present paper proposes a meta model defining the conceptual building blocks of an information space. The meta model takes knowledge as well as information sharing into account by letting ontologies represent problem domains important to the enterprise, and be used as means of imposing structure on available information. To support the different needs of the employees the ability to interact with the information space through different perspectives is essential. An example of how the meta model can be deployed to support contextual retrieval of information in a workflow management application is described.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL

General Terms:
Experimentation, Management, Theory

Keywords:
knowledge sharing, meta model, ontology, shared information space