knowledge processes and ontologies - uni koblenz.pdfVIP

Knowledge Processes and Ontologies 1;2 2 1;2 1 Steffen Staab , Hans-Peter Schnurr , Rudi Studer , York Sure 1 Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe, D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/WBS 2 Ontoprise GmbH, Haid-und-Neu Straße 7, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany http://www.ontoprise.de mailto:f staab,studer,sureg@aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de mailto:f staab,studer,schnurrg@ontoprise.de tel. +49-721-6084751, fax +49-721-6086580 November 29, 2000 Abstract Technology for knowledge management has so far focused on the management of knowledge containers. We present an approach that is oriented towards managing knowledge contents instead by identifying knowledge items at various levels of formality. This is done by providing various types of meta data that are tied to ontologies for conceptual interlinkage. Knowledge items are embedded into knowledge processes, which are supported by a suite of ontology-based tools. In order to handle this sort of rich knowledge process, we introduce a meta process that puts special emphasis on constructing and maintaining the ontology when introducing knowledge manage- ment systems. In order to elucidate our approach, we describe a case study about the building of CHAR, the Corporate History AnalyzeR. Keywords: Ontology, Knowledge Mangement, Knowledge Process 1 Introduction In recent years Knowledge Management (KM) has become an important success factor for enter- prises. Increasing product complexity, globalization, virtual organizations or cust