A Conceptual Design of an Adaptive and Collaborative E-Work Environment

Emerging work models increasingly take the form of loosely structured, often self-organising networks of nimble and virtual knowledge work teams within and between organisations. To model such work patterns requires a different approach from that of traditional workflow management systems. This paper presents the conceptual design of a prototype adaptive and collaborative e-Work environment - e-Workbench, which we are currently developing to enable future collaborative workspaces to adapt to emerging knowledge work models. We argue that with appropriate knowledge of tasks, workspaces will be able to adapt to work, and automatically retrieve contextually relevant knowledge elements from the Web in order to contribute creatively to problem solving and semantically manage shared information among collaborating workers. Our goal is to enable e-Workbench to become, not only a working environment but also, a collaborator and a co-worker as a result of its knowledge of work and creative participation in problem solving