How to Combine the Online Community with Ask the Expert System in a Health Care Site

Online communities and so-called Ask the Expert systems aim at supporting online interaction for knowledge sharing and learning. One area where these kinds of knowledge tools have become widely used is the health care sector. Through online interaction, medical trained experts can help people with concerns about diseases and other health-related problems, and those who suffer from a certain health issue can come together to share experiences and advice. During recent years, studies have been done of the usage of different knowledge tools. However, holistic studies of the use of the two tools for online interaction have not been done. This paper presents results from a study of an online health-community and an Ask the Expert system for people who suffer from overweight. Differences and similarities in regards to knowledge sharing are presented.