ASIS&T Annual Meeting Blog

The Intersection of IA and KM

October 28th, 2005 Glenda Claborne

Abe Crystal, a PhD student at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science, set the tone for this panel discussion with a metaphorical assessment of the complexity of knowledge amassed in KM research and practice: “Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink.” He prescribes desalination for Knowledge Management and recommends Information Architecture as the mechanism towards that end.

Peter Morville of Semantic Studios argues for thinking in layers - of seeing the interface as only occupying the apex of a triangle and the IA components occupying the rest of the structure. He pictured IA as levels of work needed to bring content and context up to user interfaces, in forms that are not only usable but also useful, desirable, accessible, credible, findable, and valuable.

Seth Earley of Earley & Associates emphasizes that this work of surfacing content up to user interfaces via metadata requires energy. Entropy happens. Self-organization only occurs when energy is put back into a system of organization. But metadata, as expenditure of energy, involves the active recognition that knowledge is dynamic and organic. Recognizing that knowledge creation occurs on the edges of the network helps us situate it along a continuum of unstructured and structured processes where we know what and when to use the right tools, along a continuum of low-cost unfiltered knowledge and high-cost filtered knowledge so that we may know when to be selective about what to tag. Like knowing the difference between a bus system and a taxi system.

Luz Quiroga, Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii’s LIS program, gave further context for understanding the intersection of information architecture and knowledge management in her work with personalization of websites, particularly in the domain of health services. There are areas where intelligent agents are useful for personalization and customization of health information services but they are not enough to make explicit those facets of a patient’s health information needs that are unique to a person or a culture. Human judgment must still play an active role in determining those many points of view by which people find other people, services, and resources.

I found this panel discussion useful in bridging the creative energy of knowledge creation/capture and the sustaining energy of taxonomies and ontologies. Perhaps at the intersection of KM and IA are certain universals that both create and constrain? Again, please add to this post as there were many things brought up during this panel discussion that we can all benefit from with your added thoughts.

Pictures forthcoming. My computer decided not to recognize my camera today.

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Entry Filed under: ICKM