A Context-Based Approach for Supporting Knowledge Work with Semantic Portals

Abstract

Portals are an enabling technology for knowledge management (KM): They provide users with a consolidated interface that allows accessing various types of structured and unstructured information. From the view of KM, their success depends not only on the ability to provide information and knowledge depending on the user’s tasks in business processes (exploitation of knowledge) but also on the ability to support unstructured, creative and learning-oriented actions of knowledge work (exploration of knowledge). However, knowledge management lacks concepts for integrated support of these orientations of knowledge work. The concept of knowledge stance is seen as a promising starting point. This paper presents the INWISS portal prototype that employs Semantic Web technologies for context-based integration of various information sources and applications on a semantic level and discusses extensions to this portal for the support of knowledge stances.