A Semantic Intranet is an Intranet which can enhance the way employees collaborate because it uses “meaning” to understand the content of the documents stored within its infrastructure.
It is an intelligent tool which separates the meaning from the format and enables this information to be used anywhere.
Whenever documents are created they are allocated snippets of meaning, called metatags, which the Intranet uses in its search to “understand” the content of a document an make it available to the user. Imagine being able to “Google” your Intranet for meaningful content when on a project. You could search for the relevant skills in your organisation and other documents created for similar projects.
There is a frustrating disconnect between Intranets, knowledge and work processes in many organisations. Even the best technology struggles to make sense of the unstructured and meaningless information that burdens most enterprise information systems. Organisations are finally beginning to understand the value of connecting knowledge and process into a seamless experience.
Semantics are effective way to make information systems smarter. If a corporate memory becomes semantically activated, corporate applications can help the users access the corporate memory. The content of the Intranet, the document standards, and meta-information are determined by the organisation, therefore a corporate dictionary could be employed to provide the meta data for documents, and if this dictionary is properly structured into a business ontology, or mind map of metatags, then the Intranet can become a tool for managing actionable knowledge within that business.
Semantic technology means that the power of Intranets to deliver relevant and useful information when needed may soon be fully realised. This is achieved through strategic alignment with the organisational goals, an enterprise view of information flows and a focused understanding of how individuals in an organisation work.
The Intranet should be the strategic backbone of the organisation and semantics may turn it into the powerful and valuable information system it should be.
Kate Elphick – Digital Bridges
2 Comments
April 21, 2009 at 11:44 pm
[...] HELDER BARROS placed an observative post today on The Semantic IntranetHere’s a quick excerptKate Elphick – Digital Bridges… [...]
May 4, 2009 at 8:01 am
Hi, good post. I have been pondering this topic,so thanks for posting. I will definitely be coming back to your posts.