Bridging the gap between social and technical processes to facilitate it enabled knowledge dissemination bridge building in the construction industry

The need for organizations to encourage collaborative working through knowledge sharing in order to better exploit their intellectual capital is recognized. However, much of the work to date suggests that despite the intuitive appeal of a collaborative approach significant knowledge remains locked away. It has been argued that the problem is both technological and cultural. Whilst technologically mature, sophisticated information communication technologies (ICTs) exist, providing a technological medium to support a collaborative culture in which knowledge can be elicited, stored, shared and disseminated is still elusive. This paper presents the work being undertaken as part of the IST funded e-COGNOS project that is developing an open, model-based infrastructure and a set of web-based tools that promote consistent knowledge management within collaborative construction environments. The e-COGNOS project has adopting an approach which moves away from the notion of technology managing information and toward the idea of social processes and technological tools evolving reciprocally - The notion of co-construction. Within this co-construction metaphor the project is developing a set of tools that mimic the social process of knowledge discovery thus aiming to bridge the gap between social and technological knowledge discovery and dissemination.