Contextual Knowledge Sharing in a P2P Network

Developing techniques and tools to leverage context and facilitate actions, personalization, tasks, and knowledge has been at the forefront of research in knowledge management with little concern of fully understanding context. Knowledge is created and consumed in a context - i.e. decisions are made, conversations are held, conditions computed, and knowledge is shared with respect to a context. As knowledge sharing is so critically placed within context, an understanding of this context is essential in developing effective tools. Thus, before further research can be conducted effectively, we must determine the nature and characteristics of context. This paper presents a critical overview of context from multiple perspectives. We propose a model for elucidating and characterizing context in knowledge sharing, with a practical application to peer-to-peer knowledge sharing networks