MOBILEAUDIT

A Tool for Contextual Knowledge Management

Olaf Thiele, Hartwig Knapp and Martin Schader

University of Mannheim - Department of Information Systems

68131 Mannheim, Germany

Nicolas Prat

Essec Business School - Information and Decision Systems Department

Avenue Bernard Hirsch, B.P.50105 - 95021 Cergy cedex, France

Keywords:

Mobility, knowledge management and context-aware computing.

Abstract:

In many professional activities, the ability to retrieve and store knowledge in a mobile situation is crucial. This

need, together with the progress of mobile devices, has led to the emergence of mobile knowledge manage-

ment. In this paper, we propose a context-aware knowledge management architecture for mobile environments

and apply it to an auditing use case. We developed the MobileAudit prototype using the proposed architec-

ture. MobileAudit enables environmental audits according to US as well as European EMAS (ISO 14001)

legislation.

1 INTRODUCTION

The issues of knowledge management and mobility

have often been explored separately. In a joint re-

search project between decision science and software

engineering researchers we devised a possible archi-

tecture for mobile knowledge management (Thiele

et al., 2006). Our generalized approach towards

mobile knowledge management aims at two main

components in knowledge management architectures:

knowledge sources (like knowledge database) and

knowledge interaction modules (desktop applica-

tions). While most research focuses on certain as-

pects of the problem, we present a complete archi-

tecture, which builds upon previous work in the ﬁelds

of knowledge management and mobility. A middle-

ware component called the Contextualizer serves as

the main building block of the architecture. The Con-

textualizer is complemented by components that re-

side on the mobile device and in the back-end. This

reduces the resources needed to include a new mobile

device or knowledge source into the system.

Inspired by practitioners in the ﬁeld we built Mo-

bileAudit, an environmental audit prototype imple-

mentation, that takes advantage of our proposed ar-

chitecture. Environmental audits are compulsory for

many companies in Europe and the US. Other compa-

nies take the audit voluntarily due to public pressure.

Typically, an external auditor is engaged to carry out

the audit. Since on-site interviews, up-to-date pic-

tures and personal inspection are part of every audit

trail, auditors need to be mobile while still carrying

all necessary material. Therefore, a mobile knowl-

edge management software solution might aid in this

situation.

In the next section, we present the mobile knowl-

edge management domain and point out the technical

prerequisites. In Section 3, we highlight our proposed

architecture and explain its main components. Sec-

tion 4 shows parts of our prototypical implementation

while we draw the outline of other works in Section 5.

Finally, we conclude with a resume and an outlook.

2 MOBILE KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT AND

PROPERTIES

In this section, we highlight the main aspects of

knowledge management and mobility relevant to our

work.

2.1 Knowledge Management

Knowledge management is often described as a sys-

tem of activities to permit the utilization of organi-

zational knowledge by the members of that organi-

232

Thiele O., Knapp H., Schader M. and Prat N. (2007).

MOBILEAUDIT - A Tool for Contextual Knowledge Management.

In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Wireless Information Networks and Systems, pages 216-221

DOI: 10.5220/0002149802160221

 SciTePress

zation (Hannig, 2002). In this paper, we focus on

four general knowledge management processes that

are relevant to our more technical view. On the one

hand, these are knowledge presentation and acquisi-

tion, which evolve around human interaction with the

system. Knowledge presentation comprises both dis-

playing data on the device as well as interacting with

it. If this interaction leads to some sort of knowl-

edge storage or if the user deliberately enters infor-

mation through a form or just as plain text, we cate-

gorize these activities as belonging to knowledge ac-

quisition. On the other hand, knowledge retrieval and

storage are relevant to our work. We use these terms

analogous to their technical counterparts.

2.2 Mobility Aspects

Classical knowledge management applications were

programmed for desktop use. With the introduction of

mobility, sophisticated adaptation to the mobile con-

text becomes more important. In general, the unique

properties of mobile devices are a major inﬂuencing

factor in the proposed system. With a growing num-

ber of different device types, the heterogeneity grows

enormously as most devices differ in their capabili-

ties from PCs (e.g. screen size) and from other mo-

bile device types (e.g. cell phones and PDAs). Criti-

cal factors include the display size and resolution, the

memory size and accessibility, the processing power,

connection protocols like GPRS, UMTS, or EDGE,

interaction techniques like the stylus and supported

standardized programming interfaces like Java or C

(see (Lum and Lau, 2002) and more recently (Adipat

and Zhang, 2005)). Key properties are the ubiquity

and the ability to adapt to the user’s context, given

the current position and other preferences (e.g. user

proﬁles). To sum up, beneﬁts of joining the ﬁelds

of knowledge management and mobility are ”any-

time, anywhere information access” (Grimm et al.,

2005), mobile-added values like ubiquity or context-

sensitivity (Derballa and Pousttchi, 2004), and auto-

matic context incorporation (e.g., knowledge is ac-

cessed in an adapted way and context variables such

as location are stored automatically).

3 MOBILE KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT

ARCHITECTURE

In this section, we introduce our mobile knowledge

management architecture and its underlying compo-

nents. Subsequently, we explain how the context

Figure 1: Mobile Knowledge Management Architecture.

mapping works and afterwards, we present the Con-

textualizer middleware in more detail in the Mo-

bileAudit Section 4.

3.1 Introduction

Our proposed architecture for mobile knowledge

management, shown in ﬁgure 1 on the next page, is

divided into four layers. The ﬁrst layer contains the

mobile users or mobile agents. This human agent

interacts with the system to access knowledge. The

human agent then utilizes this knowledge, transfers

it to others or enters some new knowledge back into

the system. The knowledge management activities,

knowledge presentation and acquisition are the inter-

face between layers one and two. The second layer

consists of Java-enabled mobile devices like mobile

phones, PDAs, or laptop computers. The imple-

mented middleware serves as the connecting link be-

tween the adjoining layers - it is the main focus of our

work. It translates the data ﬂow coming from the mo-

bile devices to a database query and the response is

then adapted according to the mobile context and sent

back to the device. The interfacing activities between

the third and fourth layer are knowledge storage and

retrieval. The fourth layer contains the knowledge

source which is built up of different database types.

We chose the three most popular types: relational

(SQL), object-oriented (OODB), and XML databases.

Due to the fact that most of the intelligence and com-

plexity of our application reside on the third layer, we

explain this component more detailed in the next sub-

section.

3.2 Outline of the Contextualizer

The Contextualizer is a middleware component,

which serves as a mediator between the human agent

and existing knowledge bases. It takes care of com-

munication with the knowledge base (knowledge stor-

age and retrieval) as well as linking the server and

client side according to the context (knowledge pre-

sentation and acquisition). In general terms, if the

MOBILEAUDIT - A Tool for Contextual Knowledge Management

233

Contextualizer receives an XML query from a mo-

bile device, it parses the request and analyzes the con-

text according to the following four context elements:

user dependency, technological environment, situa-

tion, and task. Subsequently, all relevant databases

are queried, the results are transformed according to

the four context elements, and, ﬁnally, the result is

sent back to the client application. All four context

elements are described thoroughly in the following

subsections.

3.3 User Dependency

User dependent elements form the ﬁrst type of context

elements. They include technical preferences as well

as the agent’s role within the organization. Most tech-

nical preferences are represented through the user’s

proﬁle. A typical user proﬁle includes data on pre-

ferred color themes as well as favored font sizes. Pro-

ﬁle information is stored on the client and is trans-

ferred to the Contextualizer in the initialization phase.

In addition to the proﬁle, the role of the user within

the organization needs to be taken into account. On

the one hand, not all members of an organization work

with all available knowledge. The users’ role deter-

mines what knowledge they are allowed to and need

to access.

3.4 Technological Environment

The technical environment comprises elements of the

device and the network. The device plays a major

role for the Contextualizer. Variables like the screen

size, processing power, available colors, or program-

ming interfaces are key determinants for putting the

knowledge into context. Two major types of applica-

tions need to be considered: text and graphical knowl-

edge representations. Text can be displayed in many

ways. Font size, text formatting and navigational el-

ements within texts (e.g. hyperlinks) as well as ways

for changing screens (e.g. scrolling) can be varied

between mobile devices depending on their capabili-

ties. As for graphical knowledge representation, dis-

play facilities vary a lot between devices. While some

devices like laptops or PDAs offer powerful standard-

ized programming interfaces, smaller devices like cell

phones or smartphones usually have limited custom

interfaces.

3.5 Situational Elements

Situational elements are those connected with time

and location. The time variable includes the actual

time as well as the corresponding time zone. De-

pending on the time of day, knowledge queries might

return different results. Moreover, the time zone is

important when retrieving time-critical information

from databases in far away countries. The other im-

portant situational element is the location. The posi-

tion of the user on the globe is one of the most promi-

nent contextual elements and is used in many mobile

applications. The location can be determined auto-

matically (via GPS) or manually. The position of the

user is especially interesting for graphical knowledge

representation in maps or sketches. The dynamic na-

ture of this element is also important in navigational

tasks. Both the Contextualizer and client need to keep

up with a driving vehicle to deliver timely knowledge.

3.6 Task-Speciﬁc Elements

All other context element implementations, as de-

scribed above, are universal and can be used for most

task types, but elements speciﬁc to the task need to be

adjusted for each task type. To ease the programming

effort needed for implementing new tasks, we devel-

oped a semantic XML description format (slightly en-

hanced Topic Maps), which can be used to seman-

tically express where knowledge resides and how it

should be handled. The semantic description is situ-

ated in a seperate Topic Maps repository. Apart from

that, the Topic Maps include information on interre-

lated topics. The documentation of relations between

topics is the great strength of Topic Maps and ideal

for mobile contextual adaptation. Data about techni-

cal issues can easily be connected to a topic as well as

other similar task related contents. See Seedorf et al.

for more on the use of Topic Maps in mobile knowl-

edge management (Seedorf et al., 2005).

4 MOBILEAUDIT

IMPLEMENTATION

We implemented a protypical MobileAudit applica-

tion to validate our mobile knowledge management

architecture and to illustrate its features. First, a tech-

nical overview of the environmental audit implemen-

tation - MobileAudit - is given. Subsequently, we then

present the basic idea of our use case and we introduce

the implemented clients as well as the corresponding

server side.

4.1 Overall Implementation

Generally, all applications (client and server side) are

programmed in Java. Technical context variables like

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234

processing power or disk size can either be typed be

the user or - our preffered method - are detected au-

tomatically. This is especially useful for varying vari-

ables. While display sizes are invariable, available

storage space changes permanantly. Situational con-

text elements need some client programming as well.

For PDA GPS reception, for example, we are using

the Navilock BT-338 Bluetooth receiver. A Java client

program on the PDA extracts the GPS position and

sends the data directly via HTTP to the server. The

server side and especially the Contextualizer were

programmed using J2EE on JBoss. The Java 2 Enter-

prise Edition APIs offer the capabilities for handling

multiple connections with clients as well as databases.

The Contextualizer is therefore scalable and perfor-

mant. We used Hibernate to access relational data and

stored XML in the eXist XML database.

4.2 Environmental Audits

Environmental issues such as global warming dom-

inate the news. Many companies, especially larger

ones, show their ecological responsibility by taking

environmental audits. Others, depending on local leg-

islation, need to prove that they are following certain

standards. While companies in the US show their

EPA compliance (US-EPA, 2007), European com-

panies follow the EMAS standard ISO 14001 (Eco-

Management and Scheme, 2007). Some commercial

applications are available to aid in the mobile auditing

process. Most functionality is offered by CMO Easy

Audit (for Environmental Audits ISO 14001 CMO-

Global-Services, 2007). This Windows-based PDA

application uses no context variables. It does not con-

nect to a server application. While this may be an ad-

vantage in some situations, the interaction with larger

data sources (like searching in existing reports) is im-

possible. Furthermore, all context variables need to

be gathered manually. This takes up valuable time

and some variables like the GPS position are best col-

lected automatically.

Root

Domain 1

Domain 2 Domain n

Section 1.1

Section 1.2

Test 1

Test 2

Figure 2: Sample Audit Trail.

Technically, an audit trail can be seen as a tree. To

complete the whole trail, all subnodes need to be com-

pleted. Subnodes contain other subnodes and some

are optional depending on previous answers in the

trail. A simple model of the tree is depicted in Figure

2. The root nodes represents a complete audit trail for

an area. Domains represents different audit areas like

air pollution, noise, chemical waste or environmental

impact. Typical sections for air pollution are furnace

or chimney usage, use of liquid fuels or asbestos con-

trol. Tests are generally questions. These might range

from yes/no answers to taking pictures or lengthy in-

terviews on working habits. Depending on previous

answers, tests can be skipped or lead to more elabo-

rate tests.

4.3 Application Implementation

Generally, we implemented two different client appli-

cations. A J2ME-based application for cell phones

and a JSP implementation for PDA‘s and laptops.

Due to the HTML limitations of the JSP implemen-

tation, we programmed some Java programs and ap-

plets to gather context variables or ease interaction.

The implemented use case adapts knowledge accord-

ing to all four context elements. User dependent el-

ements include a user proﬁle and organizational role.

The user is able to choose a certain skin and save fa-

vored top menu items. The skin features different font

sizes as we found out that users vary in their pref-

erences for reading on mobile devices. Some prefer

colorful design whereas others want a clear, plain de-

sign. The organizational role determines, which parts

of the system may be accessed by the user. In au-

diting the most important feature is sealing. Once a

subsection has been marked as completed, it must no

be changed. Therefore access rights are crucial for the

auditing process.

Technical context elements in the use case include

the color, interaction style, screen size, and band-

width. The images sent to the device are adapted ac-

cording to the given color table. Large images need to

be scaled in order to be shown on an older cell phone.

Modern cell phones can easliy handle even larger im-

ages. The graphics are sent in total if the device sup-

ports interaction types like zooming, stylus navigation

or mouse movements. The screen size and bandwidth

determine how much of maps or drawings are sent at a

time. Devices with a slow network connection receive

smaller pieces while broadband connection get sent

everything. The bandwidth of a regular cell phone

posed a problematic situation when moving fast while

viewing high resolution images. Situational elements

include the time and place. Some areas have a higher

MOBILEAUDIT - A Tool for Contextual Knowledge Management

235

Figure 3: Screenshot Laptop.

chance of frost in winter time, which poses several

environmental hazards. Other areas have reoccuring

natural threats likes hurricanes or ﬂooding.

Figure 4: Screenshot PDA.

The clients contain only a minimal set of program-

ming logic. The task speciﬁc logic of the application

keeps track of the auditing status, while the Contextu-

alizer organizes incoming and outgoing data accord-

ing to the context variables. We implemented the fea-

ture in both clients that the number of questions pre-

sented on one page or screen can be set as a user con-

text variable. Some participants liked it better to see

many questions on one page by scrolling down and up

again, others preferred only few questions per page

without scrolling. This feature was rated higher that

other features like the screenshot applet.

5 RELATED WORK

While knowledge management and mobility are well-

established research ﬁelds, the combination of both

raises questions and uncertainties. On the more tech-

nical side, for example, we face the problem that con-

nections between mobile devices and databases are

not dependable; a connection and session manage-

ment has to be introduced to guarantee a complete and

timely data exchange. Some (Holliday et al., 2002)

attend to the question how a database query might be

answered completely and discuss several disconnec-

tion modes while others (see for example (Chan and

Roddick, 2003)) dwell on weak or partial connection

modes. Zuma and Adigun combine these technical is-

sues with some reference to knowledge management

(Zuma and Adigun, 2006). In the ﬁeld of user inter-

faces design, most are constructed especially for the

targeted device (e.g. special PalmOS devices; also see

(Bardram and Hansen, 2004)) or functionality is lim-

ited (e.g. WML; also see (Picco et al., 2000)).

Work similar to our approach was carried out by

Fagrell et al. as early as 2000 (Fagrell et al., 2000).

As mobile devices had much less processing power

back then, context elements such as user dependency

or automatic location detection were not considered.

The work of Wei and Prehofer focuses more on dis-

tributed context repositories, which are queried for

decision making (Wei and Prehofer, 2003). Derballa

and Pousttchi present the idea of mobile-added val-

ues (Derballa and Pousttchi, 2004). Their approach is

rather abstract and they do not offer a technical im-

plementation roadmap. Focusing on similar issues

are Grimm et al., who are working on the now ﬁn-

ished MUMMY project (see (Grimm et al., 2005) or

(Grimm et al., 2002)). They developed applications

for several tasks (e.g. mobile facility management,

trade fair information). Finally, Adipat and Zhang

develop an adaptable framework for mobile knowl-

edge management (Adipat and Zhang, 2005). Their

main focus lies on web content adaptation according

to user preferences. See their recent publication for

an overview and update (Zhang, 2007). Further in-

formation on mobile web browsing from Pacheco et

al. (Pacheco et al., 2006). Quite similar to our ap-

proach but more focussed on cell phones than PDAs

and more on services rather than knowledge manag-

ment see Laako and Hiltunen (Laakko and Hiltunen,

2005).

6 CONCLUSION

Mobile knowledge management is a key application

area for mobile computing in general and context-

aware computing in particular. In this paper, we have

presented a context-aware mobile knowledge man-

agement architecture. The key component of the ar-

chitecture is the Contextualizer. This middleware im-

plements the knowledge management activities (e.g.,

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236

knowledge storage, retrieval, presentation, and acqui-

sition) by taking into account the context elements,

namely the user, the technical environment, the situa-

tion (i.e. time and place) and the speciﬁc task - here

environmental audits - at hand.

In the last year we developed several use cases

with the proposed architecture. While we continously

improved the mobile knowledge management archi-

tecture, we noticed large variations in the quality and

acceptance of the applications. Time and interest

from practitioners in the ﬁeld prove to be an important

factor in the design of knowledge management appli-

cations. We are currently working on what speciﬁca-

tions we need to implement a solid prototype imple-

mentation. Especially how our architecture can im-

prove existing processes.

Having little to none client speciﬁc code is one

of our key advantages. We are working with a large

variety of devices, especially larger companies are

not willing to exchange large quantities of existing

hardware. Therefore, the client software needs to be

adaptable. Furthermore, HTTP as the main transport

protocol works well over company ﬁrewalls. One of

the few drawbacks are rather bix XML-ﬁles. We are

currently working on compressing them when trans-

ferring data from cell phones.

Finally, we have not addressed collaboration so

far. Currently we are evaluating exisiting collabora-

tive approaches and want to incorporate them into our

architecture.

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