Ontology-Guided Meaning Negotiation in Communities of Practice1
Aldo de Moor · 2005
Abstract. Communities of practice require many specialized communication services, including customized workflow management systems, discussion services, and knowledge management systems. Communication ambiguities create a mismatch between these services and community requirements, and are caused by unclear (e.g. incomplete, inconsistent, overlapping) definitions of communication patterns. These are sets of related communicative workflow and norms definitions describing the acceptable and desired communicative interactions within a community. Addressing communication ambiguities requires a process of meaning negotiation, in which community members arrive at the requisite amount of agreement on pattern definitions to continue or improve collaboration. Ontologies are instrumental in facilitating this negotiation process in largescale online communities. In the DOGMA approach, we are exploring ways to develop ontology-guided meaning negotiation.