Collaborilla : An enhancement to the Conzilla concept browser for enabling collaboration

Sammanfattning: The research field Knowledge Management (KM) is about improving methods to structure and filter information. A concept browser makes it possible to navigate through complex information structures. Conzilla is such a concept browser. It is designed to present knowledge, to set concepts into relations to each other, and to make browsing through the resulting context-maps possible. Conzilla allows information and content being tied to concepts and concept-relations. The collaboration facilities in Conzilla are limited. Basic elements such as a lookup mechanism and lifecycle information for information structures are missing. Before knowledge can be contributed, it is necessary to make sure that dependencies are fulfilled and the history of an edited object is obtained. This thesis is about providing these missing parts. To be able to load a container, the information about the location of a component has to be held by a central registry. To resolve eventually existing dependencies, it is also necessary to register the components and its references. This thesis provides a design which eliminates the existing restrictions. The aim is to allow real collaboration through a remote services infrastructure, realized with Collaborilla. The theoretical background is discussed as well as a practical solution, including a prototype of a remote collaboration service.