Aspects of Knowledge Management

Active documents are a technology in knowledge management that allows users to ask questions to documents and enables them to communicate with the content. In combination with other techniques, a knowledge management system can be designed that operates proactively for, and interactively with, the user. In this thesis, the basic active documents concept is extended to work with documents of any type of media. Based on these foundations, two systems are proposed: ADIME and VIVID. ADIME is an environment for active documents in medical education. It introduces features of knowledge management in traditional, yet media-rich e-learning systems in the medical domain. One of the key features is that it allows users to ask questions or add annotations to any media object in documents such as images and video clips. VIVID, the second system proposal, is an elaborate concept for enhanced interactivity in digital video broadcasting environments. It improves the conventional broadcasting paradigm in that it permits users to find answers to content-related questions while they are actually watching a programme. This makes it easier for consumers to find, for instance, names of actors or the title of a sound track. Moreover, VIVID can provide functions for users to extract certain segments or objects from the content. This feature is particularly useful for downloading a short video clip or obtaining the audio track of a broadcast. The described concept can be employed with a wide variety of content types including movies, news and documentaries, sports, music television, and children’s programmes. The range of possible client devices includes integrated digital television sets and set-top boxes, networked computers, and mobile devices such as handheld computers or mobile phones.