Building a Knowledge Base for the Knowledge Worker System

Abstract

Every daily activity of the U.S. Army depends in part on the work of knowledge workers-action officers who gather, process, and pass on information essential for mission accomplishment. The effectiveness of knowledge workers is often impaired by constantly shifting schedules, information overload, lack of standard automated tools, and the requirements of accomplishing necessary-but-mundane tasks such as scheduling, coordinating with others, and reporting. USACERL is developing a computer-based performance support environment called the Knowledge Worker System (KWS), which is intended to substantially reduce the problems and inefficiencies inherent in knowledge work. The objective of this phase of the research was to identify the information needed to establish the rich database required to support KWS applications. It has been found that any knowledge work task may be characterized by one (or more) of 13 attributes. Similarly, the work of any functional knowledge work group may be characterized by some or all of these 13 task attributes. The information to be collected depends on the objectives of the specific application-not all applications will require data pertaining to all 13 task attributes.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1992
Accession Number
ADA258544

Entities

People

  • Beverly E. Thomas
  • Wayne J. Schmidt

Organizations

  • Construction Engineering Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Cognition
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Databases
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Human Systems Integration
  • Information Overload
  • Information Processing
  • Information Systems
  • Personnel Management
  • Psychology
  • Robotics
  • Task Performance And Analysis
  • Word Processors

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Industrial Economics
  • Systems Analysis and Design