Collaborative Knowledge Management for Net-Centric Systems (EVTM: Electronic Virtual Transactive Memory)

The resolution of complex and time-sensitive tasks often requires the collaboration among people of diverse knowledge and expertise. Collaborators benefit from each other’s knowledge and expertise by developing a shared understanding of who knows what. These distributed knowledge structures are referred to as “transactive memory systems”. The configuration of modern work groups and organizations is a dynamically and fast changing construct that no longer allows for the slow build-up and long-term maintenance of transactive memory systems. Our objective is to enable transactive memory systems within the context of computer supported collaborative work environments. We will develop an Electronic Virtual Transactive Memory (EVTM) that does not reside in the minds of people but is computationally created and administered. The EVTM will bring about and maintain a flow of information among people based on an estimation of who knows what, who needs to know what, who should know what, who should focus on what, who should share what information with whom, and who should communicate or collaborate with whom. The challenge lies in making the EVTM coordinate knowledge assets without engaging people in distracting dialogs and non-task relevant activities.