Location-Oriented Knowledge Management: Current State and Future Directions
Workshop (25 Nov 2003) at the(Unable to attend? Watch out for the Associated Contributions track!)
Location-Oriented Knowledge Management (LoKM) is a novel research direction building on established research in Mobile Knowledge Management (MoKM) and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp), especially location-based computing and, to a somewhat lesser degree, context-aware computing.
The aim of this working group is to identify and frame the defining elements of LoKM; summarize similarities and differences between LoKM and MoKM, and explore the relationship between LoKM and UbiComp.
Academics and professionals interested in understanding and exploiting the notion of location in knowledge management.
We are to explore a novel research direction that draws from established fields such as knowledge management and ubiquitous computing. Therefore we would like to bring together researchers and practitioners from disciplines, such as KM and UbiComp, as well as from related disciplines such as information science, information management, human-computer interaction and last but not least mobile commerce.
Research into LoKM is motivated by the observation that often utility and relevance of information is influenced by the physical location of the information seeker. For example, information about how to replace the toner cartridge in a particular photocopying machine is most relevant if the information seeker is at the machine's physical location. Similarly, information about where to find a refill if the department's coffee machine ran out of coffee beans is particularly helpful if the prospective coffee drinker is next to the coffee machine.
MobilKM explores knowledge management in mobile work domains (e.g., Fagrell et al. 2000). The focus is on using mobile devices, such as laptops and PDAs, to access existing knowledge management infrastructures. "Storing" information in the physical environment as a way to structure knowledge has not received much attention yet.
"Storing" information in the physical environment is, however, a topic in UbiComp. Memoclip (Beigl 2000), for example, is a wearable device actively reminding a user of tasks, depending on his or her location. When the user enters a place that has been associated with a task, the MemoClip beeps and displays the task. E-graffiti (Burrell and Gay 2002) allows users to leave notes for people at various locations on a university campus. Managing knowledge has not yet been a specialised topic in UbiComp, however.
LoKM references "knowledge management" in order to emphasise that we are particularly interested in storing and retrieving "actionable" information, i.e., information that people can apply in the respective action context: "Knowledge management means making information available effortlessly, in a usable form, to the people who can apply it in their context, so that it is actionable and, thereby becomes knowledge. It means getting: the right information, to the right people, in the right format, at the right time, so they can derive knowledge, and do their jobs better" (Brooks 2000 as quoted by Longstaff and Haimes 2000). From this perspective, we indeed are researching knowledge management, despite problems to define the term in a way that properly accounts for the cognitive dimension of knowledge (e.g., Lueg 2002).
References
Beigl, M. (2000). Memoclip: A location based Remembrance Appliance. Personal Technologies Vol. 4 No. 4 2000, Springer Press, pp. 230-234.
Brooks, C., Knowledge management and the intelligence community. Defense Intelligence Journal: 9-1, 15-24, 2000.
Burrell, J. and Gay, G.K. (2002). E-Graffiti: evaluating real-world use of a context-aware system. Interacting with Computers 14 (2002), pp. 301-312.
Longstaff, T. and Haimes, Y. (2000). Education and Knowledge Management: A Requisite For Information Assurance. Proceedings of the Third Information Survivability Workshop (ISW 2000). Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Lueg, C. (2002). Knowledge Management and Information Technology: Relationship and Perspectives (Introduction to the special issue) Informatik/Informatique 1/2002, pages 2-6.
Lueg, C. (2003). Some Issues in Building Location-Oriented Applications Operating in Mixed Regions. Workshop "Location-Aware Computing" at UbiComp 2003, Seattle, WA, USA, October 2003.
Pascoe, J. (1997). The stick-e note architecture: extending the interface beyond the user, Proceedings of ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI'97), 1997.
Regular Contributions: Prospective participants are encouraged to provide position papers (up to 2 pages) or regular papers (5000 words) to be submitted well ahead of the workshop to the authors, via email. We will then circulate these papers, provided they relate to the workshop topic in some way, before the workshop takes place at ACIS 2003-so that participants will be aware of the interests and expertise of their fellow participants.
Participants are welcome without prepared position papers, however greater value is possible from the workshop if position papers are prepared in advance, as suggested.
Associated Contributions: In order to cover as much related work as possible we are also inviting contributions to an Associated Contributions track. This track enables overseas researchers in particular to contribute to the workshop objectives even if they are unable to attend the workshop in person. Contributors should keep in mind that we intend to publish proceedings of this workshop (i.e., great publishing opportunity but copyright issues involved).
The organisers will explore wide-ranging publication opportunities (e.g. journal special issues, edited books) for full papers, and will discuss opportunities with participants at the workshop. Suitable papers, for example, could be obtained from extended versions of position papers, or from integrating / expanding workshop results. All accepted workshop papers will be published on a dedicated web site.
Submissions (PDF or postscript preferred) should be sent to
lueg@it.uts.edu.au (Christopher Lueg)
or if necessary to the physical contact address listed on the home page.
| 7 November 2003 | Papers are due (if possible) |
| 25 November 2003 | The workshop takes place at ACIS 2003 |
