Toward Virtual Community Knowledge Evolution

This paper puts forth a vision and an architecture for a community knowledge evolution system. We propose augmenting a multimedia document repository (digital library) with innovative knowledge evolution support, including computermediated communications, community process support, decision support, advanced hypermedia features, and conceptual knowledge structures. These tools, and the techniques developed around them, would enable members of a virtual community to learn from, contribute to, and collectively build upon the community's knowledge and improve many member tasks. The resulting Collaborative Knowledge Evolution Support System (CKESS) would provide an enhanced digital library infrastructure serving as an ever-evolving repository of the community's knowledge, which members would actively use in everyday tasks and regularly update.