THINK SHARED – Modellbasierte und komponentenorientierte Unterstuetzung wissensintensiver Kooperationen

Author:

Jessica Rubart

Email:

info-at-jessicarubart.de

Advisor:

Professor Joerg M. Haake

Award Date:

February 2005

Institution:

Fern Universitaet Hagen

Institution Location:

Hagen, Germany

Web Location:

http://www.dissertation.de/FDP/jr1114.pdf

Abstract:

Groupware aims at improving the cooperation between humans in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. In the course of knowledge intensive cooperation the behavior of the participants is significantly influenced by knowledge. It is, thus, extremely important to support shared understanding about the cooperation context. Such a context cannot be prescribed in detail; instead, it evolves over time. Cooperative visual modeling is an important means for supporting shared understanding.

Compared to existing groupware approaches this thesis presents a holistic and infrastructural approach aiming at model-based support for knowledge intensive cooperation. In addition, it shows a technical implementation. Holistic means that this approach integrates modeling, using, and post processing relevant activity knowledge. Infrastructural means that this approach can be configured and extended (where appropriate) for a specific usage scenario. Such a holistic, infrastructural approach improves efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge intensive cooperation.

In this thesis, different knowledge intensive cooperation scenarios are analyzed and requirements for a supporting infrastructure are derived. In particular, cooperative meta-modeling and flexibility of models are important.

In order to fulfill the identified requirements this thesis presents the approach THINK SHARED. It is characterized by a cooperative knowledge management cycle, which flexibly integrates cooperative meta-modeling, modeling, and using knowledge, which represents the cooperation context. THINK SHARED presents shared hypermedia workspaces that integrate cooperative modeling of the cooperation context and usage of shared knowledge models. Furthermore, solutions for cooperative configuration and extension of such shared hypermedia workspaces are developed addressing cooperative meta-modeling and extensibility. In particular, component technology and component-oriented development are important. The latter includes the development for reuse and with reuse and constitutes another methodological element of the approach.

The system XCHIPS4KM is a concrete implementation of the approach and described in the thesis. This prototype and previous versions have been used for supporting different knowledge intensive cooperation scenarios. The presented implementation, usage experiences, and comparison with related work show that THINK SHARED is practical, useful, and novel. Moreover, the approach can be applied to many different research and application domains.