Collaborative geo-referenced knowledge creation for designing and planning

A key feature of knowledge creation is its association with a certain location. This is often referred as situated knowledge creation. Although this has been recognized as an important characteristic, there are few computer supported knowledge management systems that explicitly incorporate location as part of the knowledge being managed. In this work we present a prototype of a mobile, collaborative application supporting geo-referenced knowledge creation and management. The system supports group decision making activities on the field, where location information is paramount importance in face-to-face scenarios using Tablet-PCs and GPS in order to geo-reference data. We first start by making a literature revision on knowledge creation and geo-collaboration systems. Then we define the requirements for a system combining knowledge creation with geo-collaboration. After that, prototype implementation is described and the results of a pre-evaluation activity are presented.