Exploitation of Digital Artifacts and Interactions to Enable Peer-to-Peer Knowledge Management

This paper surveys our efforts in the automated analysis of human created digital artifacts and human computer interactions to enable peer-to-peer (P2P) knowledge management (KM). We begin outlining the relationships among knowledge management, peer-to-peer computing, collaboration, and human language technology. We first discuss tools to support peer and group knowledge discovery, exemplifying these in the domains of global infectious disease management (TIDES) and global social indicator analysis (SIAM). Next we describe automated tools for profiling individual and collective expertise (Expert Finder) as well as organizational knowledge interactions within a distributed enterprise to detect expert communities (Expert Locator). We then describe tools that facilitate group knowledge annotation (KEAN), group learning (OWL) and group search (SCOUT). Finally, we discuss our efforts to create and deploy tools for peer-to-peer knowledge communication/exchange (CVW and TrIM). We describe the efficacy of these tools and illustrate how they collectively enable peer-to-peer knowledge management. We conclude summarizing some remaining challenges.