KMi Seminars
Synergistic serendipity
This event took place on Monday 12 December 2005 at 12:30

 
Dr. Russell Beale Advanced Interaction Group, School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

Modern computers have evolved from the beige box under the desk into an integral part of our environment and infrastructure. They are exceptional tools, offering great power and connectivity and allowing us to achieve things previously unimagined. But they remain a frustrating collaborator: pedantic, almost autistic in behaviour, it is hard get them to work with us in tackling ill-defined problems.

In this talk, I'll discuss a synergistic approach to designing and developing systems that try to bridge this gap by maximising the skills of the user through augmenting them with the capabilities of the computer. I'll discuss a number of examples of systems that have been developed from these principles, including a data mining system which understands that we're simple creatures who can't cope with multidimensional data too easily and like to speak in broad generalisations, and an internet browser that peers into the future for you. I'll also discuss how our interactions with systems have been changing, and how we can get systems to support social interaction, dating, and joke-telling - and why it's important.

 
KMi Seminars
 

Knowledge Management is...


Knowledge Management
Creating learning organisations hinges on managing knowledge at many levels. Knowledge can be provided by individuals or it can be created as a collective effort of a group working together towards a common goal, it can be situated as "war stories" or it can be generalised as guidelines, it can be described informally as comments in a natural language, pictures and technical drawings or it can be formalised as mathematical formulae and rules, it can be expressed explicitly or it can be tacit, embedded in the work product. The recipient of knowledge - the learner - can be an individual or a work group, professionals, university students, schoolchildren or informal communities of interest.
Our aim is to capture, analyse and organise knowledge, regardless of its origin and form and make it available to the learner when needed presented with the necessary context and in a form supporting the learning processes.