The challenge of publishing or disseminating can be described as getting the right knowledge, in the right form, in the right place, to the right person, at the right time. Different users will require knowledge presented and visualised in different ways, and the quality of such presentation is not merely a matter of preference, but can radically affect the value of the knowledge to the user. Getting presentation right will involve understanding the different perspectives of people with different agendas, while an understanding of knowledge content will help to ensure that important related pieces of knowledge get published at the appropriate time.

There are two promising areas for the beginning of our work. Firstly, there is the construction of visualisations. These are essential for making knowledge usable, however well managed it is before it reaches the user. The aim would be to take the knowledge that is stored in knowledge models and synthesise web pages from such models according to the requirements of the user. Agent technology could be exploited to publish online; another line of enquiry would be the use of natural language summarisation tools linked to automatic web publishing tools.

AKT is looking at the problem of publishing from a number of angles. AKT has its own on-line "newspaper", AKT-Planet, managed by intelligent agent software, formatting and presenting stories in such a way as to minimise the workload of reporters and maximising reader benefits. Research issues include how best to sustain search through archives, and how to provide personalised news alerts.

AKT Publications addressing issues in Knowledge Publishing --