A policy-ruled Knowledge Dissemination Architecture

The systematic and effective management of existing knowledge can significantly assist organizations develop quick mechanisms able to respond to various change-driven demands. Knowledge Management (KM) systems have been effectively deployed for more than two decades, incorporating Information Retrieval techniques as well as tacit knowledge utilization. However, traditional KM systems have limited functionality, mainly because of their adaptation to the single-organizational model. When applied to distributed, intra-organizational coalition framework, consisting of cooperating organizations, they can significantly leverage the overall organization’s performance. In this paper we present the extensions to the existing security models that must be realized prior to the employment of a distributed knowledge-exploiting architecture; moreover, heterogeneity, interoperability and scalability related issues are considered in order to handle the diverse set of platforms found in different Information Systems. We also propose a distributed KM framework for secure interoperation, focusing on the technical challenges and the available solutions.