An Application of Knowledge Management using Intelligent Agents

In this paper we shall outline an approach for using some new technologies to create a knowledge management system that uses both explicit and tacit knowledge to provide a service for a user. The technologies used are Communities of Practice, Web Services and agents. Explicit knowledge will be provided from a Content Repository or from the internet through Web Services and then tacit knowledge held in the minds of the experts shall be provided through Communities of Practice. Intelligent agents shall be used as the software paradigm to implement the system. A user will firstly inspect freely available explicit knowledge held in a Content Repository or retrieved from the internet. He will formulate some preconditions for a service based on this knowledge. The experts will then be queried and asked to apply their tacit knowledge which cannot be codified. Based on their response the service will or will not be performed. This system is to be developed as part of the much larger ICONS knowledge management system as an Intelligent Agent Development Environment (IADE) module. Correspondence address: Kieran Greer, The University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Belfast BT37 0QB, Northern Ireland. Telephone: +44 (0) 28 90368209 Email: [email protected]