Semantic Support for Work in Organizations

Abstract

Present day computer systems cannot implement much of the work carried out in organizations such as: planning, decision making, analysis, and dealing with unanticipated situations. Such organizational activities have traditionally been considered too unstructured to be suitable for automation by computer. We are working on the development of computer technology to overcome these limitations. Our goal is the development of a computer system which is capable of the following: describing the semantics of applications as well as the structure of the organization carrying out the work, aiding workers in carrying out the applications using these descriptions, and acquiring these capabilities in the course of the daily work through a process which is analogous to apprenticeship.