KNOWLEDGE SHARING AGENTS OVER THE WORLD-WIDE-WEB

Large and increasing amounts of information are now available both on the Internet and on corporate intranets. With the availability of thes e vast networked information resources comes a requirement for tools t o manage the information and provide users with the information they w ant, when they want it. This paper describes a system which facilitate s and encourages the sharing of knowledge between groups of users with in (or perhaps across) organisations. KSE (knowledge sharing environme nt) is a system of information agents for organising, summarising and sharing knowledge from a number of sources, including the World Wide W eb, an organisation's internal intranet or from other users. Users are organised into closed user groups ol communities of interest with rel ated or overlapping interests. Such groups could be members of a proje ct team, students studying the same subject (perhaps at different inst itutions), members of an organisational department, and so on. As well as sharing explicit (codified) knowledge, the sharing of tacit knowle dge is encouraged via the automatic suggestion of and support for, con tact between people with mutual concerns or interests.