Designing Portals for Knowledge Work

Abstract

An increasing share of work in businesses and organizations depends on information and knowledge rather than manual labor and physical goods (Wolf, 2005). Knowledge work contributes substantially to the long-term success of an organization. It is characterized by unstructured, creative, and learning-oriented tasks and involves access to a wide variety of structured and unstructured data sources such as Web sites, databases, data warehouses, document bases, or messaging systems. Knowledge work is often hampered by the fragmentation of resources across these numerous elements of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures. Consequently, concepts for the design and implementation of integrating technologies are required in order to improve ICT support for knowledge work.