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Of this deliverable, the full document of D01 (in pdf, 725 KB) or the full document of D01b - Second Edition (in pdf, 636 KB) is also available.
For a presentation of D01 click here (PowerPoint, 228KB).
The current report has been developed as a sequel of the project description report [ICONS D01] and its aim is to confront the results attained in the course of the ICONS project with those proposed in the initial project work description [ICONS D01].
We believe, that capabilities of a software platform are best illustrated by presentation of the principal system features and by illustrating those features in a pilot application. This has been the ICONS project approach documented in the project research reports and disseminated in the refereed ICONS sponsored publications. While presenting the architecture of the ICONS platform, we indicate three kinds of system features, namely (i) features that were brought into the project with the OfficeObjects® development platform and further expanded during the ICONS platform development [ICONS D05], (ii) features entirely developed by the ICONS project participants, and (iii) features that belong to the above two categories and were in the ICONS Platform application (the Structured Fund Project Knowledge Portal) [ICONS D35, ICONS D36a, ICONS 36b].
We focus on presenting the ICONS Multi-paradigm Knowledge Schema representing the system architecture and the principal ICONS application development environment discussing the principal characteristics of the ICONS KS schema paradigms categorised into the Structural Knowledge, the Procedural Knowledge, and the Declarative Knowledge Schemata.
The scalable ICONS distributed software configuration provides a technological perspective additionally indicating the development status of the individual functional modules. The scalability of the distributed system organisation is based on the inherent characteristics of the J2EE Application Server environment further enhanced by the appropriate ICONS control algorithms [ICONS D19]. An approach to optimise the allocation of the ICONS functional modules, based on service-oriented module processing characteristics, with the optimisation goal function aiming at the uniform utilisation of the underlying computer system configuration components provides solid grounds for the ICONS application performance-oriented design and performance tuning tasks.
The SFP KP system has been presented to many different potential user communities and it has been positively assessed by different organisations involved in the structural fund project management and funding activities [ICONS D37]. The pilot application provided the consortium partners with the principal system demonstration platform and it provides solid grounds for the currently formulated project Technology Implementation Plan [ICONS D34].
The knowledge management system design methodology [ICONS D25] has been developed during the entire project life cycle going through consecutive revision and refinement steps. The methodology provided a set of guidelines for the SFP KP system design and, in our view, it is a stepping stone for further development of a commercial methodology supporting design of knowledge-intensive information systems [ICONS D34].
The research strand of the ICONS project has stimulated wide dissemination of project results and the project boasts over 90 refereed publications addressing various areas of ICONS work. Such a wide acceptance of our results proves that the project subject area offers a sound research potential. A large proportion of published research results have been integrated into the final increment of the ICONS Platform.
Conclusions of the report show that the proposed approach to the ICONS project research and development work is compatible with the stated project objectives. The ICONS project activities are covering the following research and development areas: (i) knowledge representation techniques and methodologies for a multimedia content repository, (ii) advanced graphic user interface design and management tools, (iii) design and implementation of efficient algorithms for management of large, distributed multimedia content repositories, and (iv) an analysis and design methodology for large, knowledge-based content repository systems.
The primary objective of the ICONS Project Presentation report is to provide a baseline platform for all ICONS project stakeholders representing the consensus of the ICONS consortium members with respect to the ICONS research and development strategy. Much effort has gone into interactions among members of the ICONS research and development community aiming at reconciliation of diverse views and specialisations in the relevant research realms. We assume that the ensuing research results may require refinements and modifications of the underlying ICONS assumptions and we plan to reflect them in the ensuing versions of the report. Hence, this report is to "live: status document reflecting the current views of the ICONS consortium.
The initial effort has gone into the Knowledge Management System (KMS) feature requirements analysis in order to establish compatibility of requirements voiced by the knowledge management community and the prevailing opinions and conclusions of the on-going research work in the IT field. Our motivation has been to verify the ICONS project goals and objectives and possibly to re-orient some of the principal research and development objectives.
The representative results of the management science research pertaining to intellectual capital and knowledge management have been examined. We have concentrated on the work of the Knowledge Management Consortium International [Firestone2000, McElroy1999], the seminal work in the area of learning organisations [Garvin1993] and knowledge modelling [Popper1971, Popper1977], as well as generally accepted views of Nonaka and Takeuchi [Nonaka1995] with respect to knowledge creation and dissemination processes. The principal conclusions are that the current KM needs require IT support for KM processes in order to facilitate innovation leading to enhanced competitive advantage. A mapping of the KM processes and the desirable KMS features has been established.
Our findings have been confronted with the prevailing views of the IT research and development community with respect to the KMS architecture requirements. We have developed a KMS reference architecture enumerating the desirable KM features to provide a "common denominator" representation of the current IT research and development work. Principal results of the on-going European KM projects may be found in European KM Forum web site [KMForum2001]. The principal KMS feature sets include knowledge dissemination features, domain ontology features, content repository features, KMS actor collaboration features, knowledge security features, and content integration features. The KMS features role semantics with respect to the KM processes have been specified in order to confront the IT community prevailing views with those represented by management scientists. We have established that the referential KMS architecture is sufficiently powerful to provide significant enabling leverage for the KM field.
The above complementary views on the KM scene provide a solid referential background for the ICONS architecture specification providing a backbone for our research and development work. We concentrate our project work on three key technological areas, namely on the Knowledge Management Technologies area, the Human/Computer Interaction (HCI) area, and the Distributed Architecture Technologies area. We further demonstrate that such approach is fully compatible with the stated ICONS project goal and objectives and that it enables us to provide the required technical support for the KMS reference architecture. The complete view of the ICONS architecture comprises additional technological areas, auxiliary to our project, namely the Content Management Technologies area and the Development Technologies area. The software modules within the auxiliary areas are input into the project, preferably as "open source" or proprietary to consortium partners to be subsequently used and/or modified within the ICONS prototype. The cross-reference between the KMS referential architecture and the proposed ICONS architecture indicating research and/or development effort needed shows completeness of the ICONS features with respect to the established requirements.
Knowledge-based features are the important building block of the ICONS architecture therefore a multi-paradigm approach has been proposed. The research work on formal aspects of knowledge representation including rules and uncertainty, the Dempster-Shafer theory, and the extended relational model. Disjunctive Datalog inference engine is to be extended and integrated into the system provides principal knowledge-based platform. Procedural knowledge based on workflow specifications is to extent the Workflow Management Coalition model with the time modelling features and the CPM (Critical Path Method) modelling capabilities. Such extensions allow for enhanced support for knowledge management processes usually unsuitable for the WfMC-based process modelling approach. We proposed an advanced graphic HCI interface to support visualisation and manipulation of structural knowledge comprising semantic nets, UML relationships, and process graphs.
The knowledge-based capabilities are to be used in development of the intelligent content integration features to support an open ICONS content repository. The ICONS content management functions are to integrate under a unique knowledge map information resources stored internally and those stored in Web information sources, as well as in the legacy information systems and the heterogeneous databases. A wrapper-based architecture is to establish the technological base content integration.
The key features of the ICONS workflow management platform are the dynamic workflow participant assignment functions, the dynamic control flow condition modification capabilities, and time modelling features. A knowledge-based support to be used within the workflow management engine is to be developed with the use of the disjunctive Datalog inference engine module. Appropriate extensions to the WfMC model will be developed.
The ICONS distributed processing organisation, providing both for data and processing distribution, is to be based on the SDDS approach with appropriate extensions to meet the system requirements. Distributed processing will be enabled by the load balancing algorithms to be embedded in the ICONS control functions. The workflow process distribution and inter-operability is to be based on the distributed workflow communication and synchronisation features to be developed for the ICONS prototype.
ICONS capabilities are to be demonstrated by a knowledge management application to be developed by the project team as "The NAS Best Practices Portal". The application development cycle and techniques are to follow a KMS development methodology to be specified within the ICONS project. A preliminary analysis of the state-of-the-art in the area of KMS methodologies shows that, although sound methodological basis exists in the software engineering area, no generally accepted approach exists in the knowledge management realm.
The conclusions of the report show that the proposed approach to the ICONS project research and development work is compatible with the stated project objectives. The ICONS project activities are covering the following research and development areas: (i) knowledge representation techniques and methodologies for a multimedia content repository, (ii) advanced graphic user interface design and management tools, (iii) design and implementation of efficient algorithms for management of large, distributed multimedia content repositories, and an analysis and design methodology for large, knowledge-based content repository systems.