The problem of undocumented knowledge

SIMO S. HÄMÄLÄINEN, student, University of Lapland, Finland

HELEN HEINMAA, student, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

Organisations have huge amounts of undocumented knowledge. They employ
people with different experience and skills, who can keep things
running, but much of the information required for this is only in their
heads. This information is difficult to document, but it's vital to
keeping things running smoothly. Often, when a question arises, it is
even difficult to know whom to ask!

To access such information, we propose a social discussion channel built
around a chat service:

1. Users maintain a list of areas of expertise: general topics which
they know about.

2. When someone needs information on a particular topic, she logs onto
the chat and asks her question.

3. Using linguistic and semantic analysis, the system processes the
question and extracts keywords. These keywords are compared with
people's expertise to find out who may know the answer.

4. Messages are sent to the users who may be able to help.

5. Someone who knows the answer replies.

Unlike business emails which take longer to write, people are
comfortable sending quick, to-the-point replies in a chat. People are
also comfortable ignoring chat messages. Because the questions are sent
to many people, anyone who is busy can ignore the question. Less
distracting than a live chat session, the system is more instantaneous
than email.

Many fields could benefit from this system. Experts such as doctors,
developers and technical support personnel can share their expertise
efficiently. Informal sharing of information is an efficient way to tap
into the varying areas of expertise and also share information for staff
training purposes.

Questions and answers are stored in a searchable database. New questions
can be compared to previously answered questions and the system can
suggest solutions automatically. As a side product the system creates
new, high-quality documentation automatically.