Masthead CMC Magazine / May 1, 1996
 Creating Web Communities, by Damon A. Chaplin

The Knowledge Base

The knowledge base is where the accumulated knowledge of the group is stored. It consists of a table of contents, organized hierarchically using category headings, with links to documents placed beneath the appropriate categories.

I hope that the simple hierarchical structure will make it easy to find any information of interest, though there is also a command to search areas of the knowledge base on document attributes such as author, last modification date, or the full text.

There are functions for creating and maintaining the structure as well as adding and editing the information contained therein. It is also possible to add links to external information using URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), the standard Web addressing mechanism. Answers created in the bulletin board can be stored in the knowledge base, under multiple categories if desired.

Axis also provides a way to keep track of people who are knowledgeable in particular areas, known as experts. This is accomplished by selecting users who make useful contributions to particular discussions (selected during the Create Answer command of the bulletin board). The experts for a category can also be edited manually. --


CMC Magazine Index
Contents Archive Sponsors Studies Contact