Focus Areas
Semantic Technologies
The complexity of natural language calls for disambiguation and advanced software components able to understand electronic content. This is the fundamental idea behind Berner-Lee’s vision of the Semantic Web. Semantic technologies unfold their full potential through network effects and require a critical mass of annotations along several dimensions such as location (source and target geography), content (major topics covered, e.g. by assigning terms from a controlled vocabulary), and time (timestamps for events, publications and their subsequent revisions). Knowledge repositories can then be organized, indexed, searched and navigated along these dimensions.
> IDIOM (Information Diffusion across Interactive Online Media)
> AVALON (Acquisition and VALidation of Ontologie)
> webLyzard
> Semantic Web Atelier
Social Software and Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 describes advances in Web technology, governed by strong network effects and the harnessing of collective intelligence through customer-self service and algorithmic data management. The set of technologies usually associated with the Web 2.0 integrates well with current protocols, complementing but not replacing established modes of content production, distribution, and navigation. Knowledge sharing in Research and Higher Education is an important application domain for these new technologies. In 2005, KMI started a Workshop Series (http://i-know.know-center.tugraz.at/i_know_06/topics/ksr_06) on this topic to establish a scientific community within the context of the I-KNOW conference series.
Cognitive Science in Technology Enhanced Learning and Game-Based Learning
This line of research focuses on modelling knowledge and competence, on developing comprehensive knowledge representation frameworks and ontologies, on contributing to psycho-pedagogical frameworks, and on their application in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) for personalising learning paths and for adaptively assessing knowledge and competencies.A special direction of TEL we investigate is the area of Game-Based Learning (GBL) and the application and adaptation of models and procedures to the specific requirements of GBL.
> ROLE (Responsive Open Learning Environments)
> Target (Transformative Adaptive Responsive and enGaging EnvironmenT)
> Next-TELL (Next Generation Teaching, Education and Learning for Life)
> ImREAL (Immersive Reflective Experience-based Adaptive Learning)
> GALA NoE (Game And Learning Alliance)
> CULTURA (Cultivating Understanding and Research through Adaptivity, upcoming)
> MedCAP Plus (Follow-Up to MedCAP)
Geospatial Web
Accessing vast knowledge repositories and harnessing collective intelligence call for new user interface metaphors. Hailed as the big disruptive innovation of the coming decade, particularly since the introduction of geo-browsing platforms such as Google Earth and NASA World Wind, the Geospatial Web emerges as such a metaphor, and as an enabler of a broad range of unforeseen applications. The Knowledge Management Institute's geospatial investigates methods to “geo-enable” existing knowledge repositories through parsing and coding geospatial references, and different types of geospatial applications in a new media context.
> Call for Chapters: The Geospatial Web (Edited Springer Book)
Environmental Informatics
In a world of rapid change, organizations are constantly seeking ways of adapting and reinventing themselves. At the same time, the urgency and scope of environmental problems call for both immediate action and sustainable long-term strategies. The Knowledge Management Institute investigates strategies and technologies that help survive and flourish in such a dynamic and competitive environment, providing decision-makers tools to re-examine their knowledge assets and identify new methods to exploit these assets more effectively.