WP9 will develop and validate a knowledge management system supporting a number of communities in British Telecommunications Plc. It will make use of all the technology strands in the project, i.e. the use of formal and informal semantics, context and process learning, and the utilisation of informal knowledge processes. Studying a number of different user communities will provide the opportunity to understand the different behaviours, different requirements and different incentivisations necessary for these different communities. The communities may include:

• Technical specialists supporting sales and after-sales activity in BT Global Services (~130 users)
• Legal and regulatory teams (~100 users)
• Marketeers (~100 users)

The tools used by the case study users will be generic desktop applications and the user behaviours are likely to be representative of knowledge workers in many sectors. Similarly the processes involved will be chiefly generic knowledge processes rather than sector-specific. Thus, although the knowledge workers are employed in the telecommunications sector, the results will be widely applicable.

The system will support users in managing and sharing information; will provide them with the knowledge they need appropriate to the context in which they are working; and will guide them through their knowledge processes by understanding their current context and drawing on what has been learned of user processes from previous user behaviour. What the system learns about user context and user behaviour will be integrated with information provided by the users themselves, e.g. as informal tags. The metadata collected in this informal way will be processed using formal semantic techniques, enabling inferences to be drawn, e.g. equivalences between tags, relationship between information items and processes. By learning knowledge processes from user behaviour, it will also be possible to infer recommendations for action and suggest appropriate information at various stages of the user’s informal knowledge processes.

The case study will thoroughly test the technology developed in the project, both from the technical and usability standpoints. The latter will include both the interaction between user and tools and also how the technology encourages and supports inter-user interaction.

The case study will also develop prototype software for subsequent exploitation within project partners, in particular BT. The case study will also create demonstrations, presentations and white papers to support dissemination activities within the project.