Knowledge Patterns

Knowledge is one of the most important assets for any kind of organization, and for all areas of science. While experience describes events in one specific context that can only be reused carefully, knowledge is usually applicable in previously unknown contexts with a fair amount of certainty. To support practitioners and researchers in their knowledge management (KM) activities, the concept of knowledge patterns can be used. Knowledge patterns are one way to formalize and describe lessons learned and best practices (i.e., proven experiences) about structuring knowledge, the design of KM systems, or the development of underlying ontologies. Such patterns capture aspects that positively or negatively influence the KM activities. In the later case, where negative influences are described, such patterns are denoted as anti-patterns. Knowledge patterns and anti patterns can help in developing KM systems and improve the quality of the systems themselves as well as that of the knowledge within (i.e., the quality of the knowledge). Thereby, patterns in KM represent a way of structuring knowledge as well as a form of language that helps knowledge engineers to communicate about knowledge and KM systems.