Knowledge Management Component Architecture

The Knowledge Management Component Architecture consists of knowledge portals, knowledge components, and the knowledge repository.

A Knowledge Portal is a starting point web site where members of a knowledge community begin to enter, find, and access knowledge using the various knowledge artifacts. The knowledge portal may be designed to focus upon the type of work expected to be done by the knowledge user. Knowledge portal profile modes so far determined are:

1. knowledge subject matter access,
2. collaboration,
3. community description and,
4. a combination of the above.

At times, the knowledge user may wish to focus on knowledge relevant to a project being worked on within the context of the knowledge community, or he or she may wish to take an enterprise knowledge view.

A knowledge component is a self-contained, reusable object that can be used independently or assembled with other components to satisfy knowledge management requirements. There is the generic set of architecture issues relevant to all components. Knowledge components have to interface with the knowledge portal, with the knowledge repository, and with other knowledge components. A knowledge component may need to be customized to handle knowledge of events specific to a given knowledge community. In a like fashion, component behavior may need to be customized to satisfy the special needs of the specific knowledge community.

The Knowledge Repository consists of servers where knowledge indices and, often knowledge artifacts (documents, presentations, databases, charts, graphs, plans, audio files, and/or video files) are made accessible. Some searching may cross knowledge servers.

Global Virtual Knowledge Repositories are inter-connectable Knowledge Repositories, globally distributed, that look to be a single entity to portals and knowledge components. One search searches all.