Personal Knowledge Management with Semantic Technologies

Abstract

Managing and enabling knowledge is a key to success in our economy and society (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002, p. 6). The problem of knowledge management can generally be tackled from two sides: top-down and bottom-up. Many approaches have been taken from the top down in which the organisation aimed to better manage their internal knowledge by installing central knowledge repositories. Many of these systems were less accepted than expected (Braganza & Mollenkramer, 2002). Along with the Web 2.0 notions of user-provided content and collective intelligence, more bottom-up approaches to knowledge management were developed. In this chapter we describe an individual-centric, bottom-up approach to personal knowledge management (PKM). PKM is the individual management of knowledge from a subjective perspective.