Using task context to achieve effective information delivery

Abstract

The use of task context to guide the delivery of information to knowledge workers is valuable for improving their efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, the sharing of context between individuals can aid the sharing of knowledge. This paper describes research in the ACTIVE project which uses context to support information delivery and sharing. Machine intelligence techniques are used to learn the association between information objects and context; and to learn how to partition a user's information objects into a set of contexts. Informal processes are also important to knowledge workers, and another research challenge is to understand how context influences the choice of steps in a process. Other research questions relate to the user interface for context-driven information delivery. Chief amongst these questions is whether the user wishes or needs to be aware of the concepts of context and process; or whether only the system should be aware. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work or personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. © ACM 2009 ISBN.