Context-aware decision support in knowledge-intensive collaborative e-work

Abstract

In organisation-based work groups, experts often approach problem solving by combining explicit domain knowledge and information with their practice-based knowledge in ways that are largely driven by their specific work context. In collaborative e-work, such common grounds for decision making offered by a shared work context hardly exist. Designing context-aware systems to support decision making in collaborative e-work, thus, poses a huge challenge because of the inherent difficulty in establishing a shared context of work and users adequate for supporting cohesive collaboration and knowledge sharing among experts across organisational and geographical boundaries. To address this problem, this paper proposes a framework, which incorporates an explicit model of context between the domain model of an application and the activity landscapes of various individuals, workgroups and organisations collaborating across borders, and between these landscapes and the knowledge resource space model in an intelligent ubiquitous environment. We argue that an explicit context model will enable a clearer understanding of the way experts integrate knowledge during problem solving, and thus provide common grounds for decision making and knowledge sharing during collaborative e-work. We demonstrate how a system based on our proposed model can be applied to support the reactive, collaborative and proactive modes of decision support in collaborative e-work.