An image-based annotation technique to overlay users' knowledge on existing systems

We propose an interactive annotation system that allows users to obtain operational knowledge from annotations that are automatically drawn on top of specific Operation Support System (OSS) windows. Currently it is difficult for OSS users to share knowledge because they lack efficient tools to express and share the knowledge. Our proposal rectifies this omission by allowing users to create, update and read the annotations supplied by others. It creates a knowledge exchange environment that is extremely efficient since the annotations are overlaid on OSS windows; the users do not have to waste time searching formal documents such as user manuals and the latest knowledge is made available. The proposal offers the following innovations: 1) Users can create useful annotations while working 2) Users can alter/update annotations interactively, and 3) Knowledge pooling is realized by a central annotation database. The technical advantages of the proposal are confirmed by tests performed on a prototype. This paper describes the proposed method and practicability in actual use-cases.