Supporting collaborative knowledge work: A methodology for developing ICT tools for biomedical research

Abstract

The nature of knowledge work not only addresses the productive aspects of an activity but also the intellective work that underpins production. Support for knowledge work requires tools for both types of tasks in order to integrate these aspects and to make the cognitive tasks visible. Biomedical research is concerned with the structure and behaviour of phenomena and requires tools that support the exploration of both aspects of the phenomena. This paper presents a method for developing computer-based models that allow such investigations. The method is based on a linguistic paradigm that assumes the models express the common language that represents the phenomena and is constructed collaboratively between a biomedical researcher and a computer scientist. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.