ITcon Vol. 10, pg. 305-327, http://www.itcon.org/2005/21

Ontology-based optimisation of knowledge management in e-Construction

SUBMITTED: December 2004
REVISED: September 2005
PUBLISHED: November 2005
EDITOR: Turk Z

C. Lima, Dr.
Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment, Sophia Antipolis, France
email : celson.lima@cstb.fr

T. El- Diraby, Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada
email: tamer@ecf.utoronto.ca

J. Stephens, Project manager
Taylor Woodrow, Technology Centre, Bedfordshire, UK
email: jeff.stephens@uk.taylorwoodrow.com

SUMMARY: The e-COGNOS platform presents the first comprehensive ontology-based portal for knowledge management in the construction domain. The main features of the platform are an ontology (to encapsulate human knowledge) and a set of web services to support the management of ontology (creation, updates), user management (profiling) and handling knowledge management requirements (indexing, documentation, retrieval and dissemination). Implementation of e-COGNOS platform (at leading European construction organizations) has proven the benefit of semantic systems as they provided adequate search and indexing capabilities, allowed for a systematic procedure for formally documenting and updating organizational knowledge (through the ontology) and enhanced the customization functions in a knowledge management systems (through user profiling). The development and implementation of the e-COGNOS platform has also shown that the managerial aspect of knowledge management (in terms of integrating knowledge in daily processes and the link between knowledge and organizational structure) is harder to attain.

KEYWORDS: ontology, knowledge management, eBusiness, semantic systems.

FULL TEXT: file.pdf (481,687 bytes)

CITATION:

Lima C, El-Diraby T and Stephens J (2005) Ontology-based optimisation of knowledge management in e-Construction, ITcon Vol. 10, pg. 305-327, http://www.itcon.org/2005/21