Knowledge Practices Environment (KPE)
KPE is designed to support collaborative knowledge creation processes (i.e. trialogical inquiry) by providing a shared knowledge space with tools for developing, commenting, and managing knowledge artefacts, as well as organizing knowledge creation processes and social collaboration around them.
Description of the tool
KPE is designed to mediate various aspects (epistemic, pragmatic, social, reflective) of collaborative work in an integrated way actualizing “multimediation”. It provides a shared knowledge space with versatile tools for developing and managing knowledge artefacts, organizing processes and people, and reflecting on practices from several perspectives. Main perspectives consist of the Content, Process and Community views. KPE includes a set of tools (e.g. real-time and history based awareness , wiki, note editor, commenting, chat, semantic tagging and semantic search) for working with the shared knowledge objects. Various tools and functionalities are highly integrated in the basick views to enable versatile and flexible creation, connection, organization and reflection of the material in shared spaces.
A central view in KPE for working on knowledge artefacts is the Content view that allows free visual arrangement, flexible restructuring, and linking of its content. KPE is not based on folder structures or hierarchical presentation of the content. Visual organization is supported by various mechanisms, such as spatial arrangement and linking of items, the creation of user defined views (“tailored views”) as well as the creation of visual models on top of existing views.
KPE can be adapted to various practices, and is suitable and useful in various domains of knowledge; thus enabling end-user appropriation.
Semantic features aim at supporting knowledge creation processes by providing integrated use of semantic functionalities (like tagging, filtering, grouping, searching) and advanced notification and recommendation services. Users have the opportunity to flexibly create their own conceptual models and conceptualizations.
The tool and knowledge creation
The knowledge-creation approach on learning and working is a central starting point of the development of KPE. It refers to learning and working processes where groups of people deliberately and sustainably work for developing knowledge artefacts (ideas, models, reports of solutions etc.) with the support of collaborative technology and/or engage in reflection and transformation of their knowledge practices. The vision behind KPE is that versatile tools that could flexibly mediate such collaborative work around artefacts and practices, will significantly support processes of collaborative creativity, and learning strategies of collaborative knowledge creation.
Prospective users
The potential market for the Shared Space is wide in scope and may include, in general, any organisation working with knowledge creation and, in particular, organisations dealing with complex collaborative tasks.
In particular, the KPE is expected to be used within the following domains:
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Higher education;
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Student groups;
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Internship courses;
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Teacher training;
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Teacher networks;
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Disciplinary networks (across universities);
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Schools;
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Non-Profit organizations; and
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Companies.
Knowledge protection
The project is committed to open-source, so that the main part of tools and applications being developed will be available to external research and development in open-source terms.
Contact details
Merja Bauters: merja.bauters[at]metropolia.fi
Minna Lakkala: minna.lakkala[at]helsinki.fi
Patrick Ausderau (regarding technical questions): patricka[at]metropolia.fi
