Semantic-based Groupware System in SAKE for Support of Knowledge and Expert Intensive Public Administration Processes

In this article we propose the Semantic-based Groupware System (GWS) for SAKE project. SAKE (Semantic Agile Knowledge-based E-government) is a STREP Project sponsored by the European Union starting in March 2006. The overall objective of SAKE is to specify, develop and deploy a holistic framework and supporting tools for an agile knowledge-based e-government that will be sufficiently flexible to adapt to changing and diverse environments and needs. All public administration processes are knowledge-intensive and influenced by experts in specific domains. The core of the whole SAKE system is represented by an integrated knowledge space unifying different perspectives and interpretations of knowledge resources. It enables for each knowledge object to be assigned metadata allowing more sophisticated retrieval and use. A goal of our groupware system is to support sharing of their knowledge using collaborative software as well as to help them in managing and creation of experts group, which are used in governmental and self-governmental internal administration processes. One of the main contributions to semantic enhancement of system, which will be described mostly in this paper, is based on method for discussion forums analysis and computing of ranking of users according to actual annotated discussion topic.