ESMAP: A Multi-agent Platform for Extending a Knowledge Management System

For more than one decade knowledge management has taken advantage of some abilities that software agents are endowed with. Agent features such as autonomy, cooperation, communication, and learning capacity have been used to improve the performance of knowledge management applications. In this paper we outline our proposal for implementing a Jade-based multi-agent platform to enhance the potential of KnowCat: a fully consolidated, thoroughly tested and validated knowledge management system which has been in active use at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Spain) since 1998. We also give a succinct description of the agent platform architecture and a brief presentation of its current status