The role of case studies in ACTIVE is:

• To fully validate and test the technology developed in the project;
• To provide prototype systems in respect of ACTIVE technology which can be used by the lead ACTIVE partner in each case study as the basis for commercial exploitation opportunities;
• To create material for public dissemination on the effectiveness of the ACTIVE technology, which can be used by all project partners to publicise the project and its achievements;

Each of the case studies will demonstrate how technology from ACTIVE responds to the critical challenge of increasing the tacit productivity of knowledge workers in the different case study sectors. Specifically, each of the case studies will demonstrate:

• How knowledge can be effectively shared within communities through the combination of user-friendly social computing techniques combined with the power of formal semantics.
• How a user can access relevant knowledge more quickly and easily by taking into account the context in which he or she is working; in particular how the use of context can prioritise the presentation of knowledge to the user.
• How the effectiveness of knowledge tools can be enhanced not just by taking account of the content with which the user interacts, but also the informal knowledge processes in which he or she is engaged. In this way the system can provide information and make recommendations to the user at various stages of these knowledge processes.