This paper outlines the first experiences of an approach for automatically deriving information demands in order to provide users with demand-driven information supply and decision support. The presented approach is based on the idea that information demands with respect to work activities can be identified by examining the contexts in which they exist and that a suitable source for such contexts are Enterprise Models. However, deriving contexts manually from large and complex models is very time consuming and it is therefore proposed that a better approach is to, based on an Enterprise Model, produce a domain ontology and from this then automatically derive the information demand contexts that exist in the model.

Readily available information is a crucial basis for making decisions, solving problems, or performing knowledge intensive work. Providing such information meeting the needs of a user has to be based on an accurate, purpose-oriented and up-to-date representation of the demand in question. The paper is devoted to a study of different context-based models of user demand. The selected approaches from the fields of information logistics and decision support are based on enterprise models and object-oriented constraint networks (OOCN). Combining these approaches will allow for an orchestrated use of enterprise models and OOCN for decision support. Discussion and integration of these approaches is illustrated using an example enterprise model, a related information demand context and a corresponding decision support context.

In this paper an approach for deriving abstract and operational context for context-sensitive decision support, and thereby also parts of information demand contexts, from enterprise models is presented together with some thoughts on how this can be utilised in the efforts of trying to provide users with current, correct, and relevant information with respect to the tasks such users perform within organisations. The different steps involved in the process of deriving context from enterprise models is explained by means of different representations of an example model produced in earlier research done by the authors.

It has been suggested that problems in information searching, storing, and processing related to information overflow could be reduced by introducing information systems based on the Information Logistics approach providing the right information to the right place at the right time. However, in order to do so an understanding of what the right information, time, and place are is necessary, i.e. the information demands motivating the system must be known. In this pa-per a definition of the term information demand as well as different aspects thereof are presented together with ideas on how they can be analyzed. It is ad-vocated that the key to understanding such demands are to understand the con-text in which they exist and that the large part of such contexts can be derived from different types of Enterprise Models.

Whilst the amount of information readily available to workers in information- and knowledge intensive business- and industrial contexts only seem to increase with every day, those workers still have difficulties in finding relevant and needed information as well as storing, distributing, and aggregating such information. Yet, whilst there exist numerous technical, organisational, and practical approaches to remedy the situation, the problems seem to prevail.

This publication describes the first part of the author’s work on defining a methodology for improving the flow of work related information, with respect to the information demand of individuals and organisations. After a prefatory description of the perceived problems concerning information flow in modern organisations, a number of initial conjectures regarding information demand and use in small-scale business contexts are defined based on a literature study. With this as the starting point the author sets out to, through an empirical investigation performed in three different Swedish organisations during 2005, identify how individuals within organisations in general, and these three in particular, use information with respect to such organisational aspects as roles, tasks, and resources as well as spatio-temporal aspects. The results from the investigation are then used to validate the conjectures and to draw a number of conclusions on which both a definition of information demand, as well as the initial steps towards defining a methodology for information demand analysis, are based. Lastly, a short discussion of the applicability of the results in continued work is presented together with a description of such planned work.

The paper addresses the field of modelling information demand context, which can be considered as an application of enterprise modelling techniques with focus on capturing information demands. Based on industrial cases from automotive industries, experiences and practices of information demand modelling are presented and investigated. This includes the specific perspective taken in the method for information demand analysis, common challenges experienced in demand modelling, the validity of practices from participative enterprise modelling for context modelling and practices of context modelling.

Digital libraries are an important information source of high quality information for various user groups in education, research and industry. With an exponential growing amount of digital content, digital libraries face the challenge of enhancing the support for information seeking. This paper takes the users’ perspective and investigates whether the users of digital libraries perceive that their information demand is satisfied. The approach taken is an empirical qualitative study with various user groups in two different countries. From an information demand perspective, the main result is the support for the conjecture that there is a coupling between the user’s context and the information demand: The analysis of the data collected in the interviews and of the observations shows a connection between the respondent’s role (teacher, researcher, student, etc.) and the activities for which the searched information is needed (assignment, lectures, scientific work, etc.). The observation from Jönköping that researchers seem to be more aware of their information demand was not confirmed in the Karelian part. Furthermore, a usability questionnaire was used to identify shortcomings and propose improvements in the digital library systems applied at the two study locations.

Information logistics aims at demand-oriented just-in-time information supply to individuals and organisation units in enterprises. This paper contributes to research in information logistics by investigating dimensions of information demand and by defining an approach to information demand modeling. Our approach primarily consists of the concept of a "context" consisting of processes, organisation structure, resources and contact network. Furthermore, we integrate our apporach with the earlier developed notion of situation. In order to validate applicability of our approach, we investigate the field of collaborative engineering. An example context and typical situations in collaborative engineering are presented.

This handbook describes IDA, a method for analysing information demand, based on the work performed within the two research projects InfoFlow 1 and InfoFlow 2. The handbook covers the method in terms of background, framework and included parts, as well as how these different parts are used pragmatically. The use of the method and its parts is illustrated by means of an example case.

Decision making and knowledge intensive work requires information supply tailored to the need of the user in question. Context management is considered a key contribution to this objective. The paper investigates context definitions and representations from two different viewpoints: information demand analysis and decision support. Discussion and comparison of these viewpoints includes enterprise models as a source for information demand analysis, ontologies and object-oriented constraint networks as representation technique and correspondences between information demand context and context in decision support.

Information overload is perceived as a common problem in organisations and enterprises, which calls for new organisational and technological approaches for more pertinent and accurate information supply. The paper contributes to addressing this problem by proposing a method for information demand modelling, which contributes to capturing and understanding the information demand of roles in organisations. This method consists to a large extent of an application of enterprise modelling techniques. Illustrated by a case from automotive industries, lessons learned from information demand modelling are presented and discussed. This includes the specific perspective taken in the method for information demand analysis, common challenges experienced in demand modelling, the validity of recommendations from participative enterprise modelling for information demand modelling. Furthermore, the paper introduces the notation applied for information demand models and discusses refinement process of this notation.

In this paper we analyze the methodological requirements for Information Demand Analysis (IDA) i.e. capturing, representing, and modeling information demand by means of Enterprise Models (EM). The paper presents the background of IDA and defines the initial requirements and then discusses the suitability of one example EM method, EKD.

Collaborative design in dispersed groups of engineers creates various kinds of challenges to technology, organization and social environment. This paper presents an approach to description and representation of the competences needed for a planned collaborative design project. The most important competence areas are identified starting from the nature of design work, problem solving in design teams, and working in distributed groups. The competence model is built structuring these areas according to three perspectives: general, cultural, and occupational competences. An ontological representation is proposed to implement the described model for collaborative design competence. Using an ontology language for representation of collaborative design competence models makes it possible to identify those individuals who are best suited for the collaboration by ontology matching. Finally, a software design team consisting of two persons was interviewed and two competence profiles were created using the developed ontological representation of the model. The modeling of the team members has proved that the proposed approach can be applied to modeling competences needed for collaborative design in engineering fields.

Collaborative design in dispersed groups of engineers creates various kinds of challenges to technology, organization and social environment. This paper presents an approach to description and representation of the competences needed for a planned collaborative design project. The most important competence areas are identified starting from the nature of design work, problem solving in design teams, and working in distributed groups. The competence model is built structuring these areas according to three perspectives: general, cultural, and occupational competences. An ontological representation is proposed to implement the described model for collaborative design competence. Using an ontology language for representation of collaborative design competence models makes it possible to identify those individuals who are best suited for the collaboration by ontology matching. Finally, a software design team consisting of two persons was interviewed and two competence profiles were created using the developed ontological representation of the model. The modeling of the team members has proved that the proposed approach can be applied to modeling competences needed for collaborative design in engineering fields.

Collaborative design in dispersed groups of engineers creates various kinds of challenges to technology, organization and social environment. Selected examples are knowledge sharing, coordination support or secure tool integration (Jacucci, Pawlak, & Sandkuhl, 2005). Work presented in this chapter is located in the area of formation of teams for collaborative design. The challenge addressed is how to describe and represent the competences needed for a planned collaborative design project in a way that those individuals best suited for the collaboration can be identified. The proposed approach is to apply ontology engineering to modeling competences of individuals, including different competence areas like cultural competences, professional competences or occupational competences.

Collaborative design in dispersed groups of engineers creates various kinds of challenges to technology, organization and social environment. This paper presents an approach to description and representation of the competences needed for a planned collaborative design project. The most important competence areas are identified starting from the nature of design work, problem solving in design teams, and working in distributed groups. The competence model is built structuring these areas according to three perspectives: general, cultural, and occupational competences. An ontological representation is proposed to implement the described model for collaborative design competence. Using an ontology language for representation of collaborative design competence models makes it possible to identify those individuals who are best suited for the collaboration by ontology matching. Furthermore, a software design team consisting of two persons was interviewed and competence profiles were created using the developed ontological representation. Modeling of the team members has confirmed that the proposed approach can be applied to modeling competences needed for collaborative design in engineering fields.