WORKSHOP

(Tokyo, 1999)

The Workshop on Social Aspects of Knowledge and Memory was organised as a part of 1999 IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Conference in Tokyo. The aim of this one-day workshop was to explore the social aspects of knowledge and memory, and discuss the range of issues from their acquisition, representation, management to application, based on recent progress in the area of community-oriented systems.

With the widening of popular Internet access and recent advances in communication networks and technology, interactions on computer networks have grown to be used not only by selected professionals and specialists, but also by ordinary members of public. This has created a strong interest in computer network as a social medium, rather than a mere communication tool. The research question the participants in this workshop had in common is how can we support and facilitate such a social aspect of this growing communication medium, by devising intelligent tools, applications and services.

One of the major issues in supporting social interactions and orientations in systems such as those envisaged by "communityware" is the examination of social aspects of knowledge and memory, which was the theme of this workshop. We assume that the use of community knowledge and memory would enhance the capability of communityware. Here issues such as collecting community memories, acquiring community knowledge and maintaining community knowledge, and the community itself, arise.

The workshop aimed to offer a place where those from a diverse background such as social sciences, cognitive science, business, and computer science come together and contribute in discussions concerning research and development centred around these issues. The workshop brought together 28 participants, out of which 13 contributed as presenters, who presented their work and ideas in one of the four sessions:

• Capturing knowledge and memory that belong to a community.
• Supporting social interactions of distributed groups and individuals.
• Identifying socio-cultural aspects of knowledge and memory.
• Environments, tools and techniques to support social aspects of knowledge and memory.

This summary intends to offer a glimpse of what was reported and discussed in this Workshop.