Title: UnaWare: supporting tacit design knowledge exchange

Authors: Ann Heylighen, Mathias Casaer, Herman Neuckermans

Addresses: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Department of ASRO, Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium. ' Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Department of ASRO, Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium. ' Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Department of ASRO, Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium

Abstract: DYNAMO (Dynamic Architectural Memory Online) is an interactive platform to share ideas, knowledge and insights in the form of concrete building projects among designers in different contexts and at different levels of expertise. Interaction with various user groups revealed two major thresholds: submitting project material to the platform takes time, effort, and specific skills; in addition, designers tend to sense a psychological threshold to share their ideas and insights with others. In response to this |free-ridership|, the paper proposes to conceive DYNAMO as an associative network of projects, and develops ideas about how the links in this network can be determined and updated by exploiting insights implicitly available in project documentation and user (inter)actions. This should allow DYNAMO to learn from the insights of all designers using the platform, active contributors and |free-riders| alike, without any awareness on their side and to apply these insights to continuously enhance its performance.

Keywords: architectural design; self-organisation; usage logs; connectionism; design knowledge; tacit knowledge; knowledge exchange; project documentation; user interactions; interactive multimedia platforms; case-based design; cognition; dynamic memory; learning content management; design knowledge; online learning; e-learning; web based communities; learning communities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2006.008613

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2006 Vol.2 No.1, pp.31 - 44

Published online: 11 Jan 2006 *

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