Mapping the course, marking the trail [personal knowledge management]

Personal knowledge management tools function to help humans consider their information assets and needs before searching, so they can ask insightful questions and form search request better. Extending this approach, Mitretek Systems designed and implemented a prototypes of two post-search tools to use after the initial search. The personal information extraction (PIE) tool helps the user build models to organize and explore the information in a collection of documents. The Knowledge Discovery Trails tool (KD trails) records the routes of information-foraging excursions, so people can share of repeat successful approaches. Tools such as these would let knowledge workers improve the ways they search for and manage information, helping them transform an instinctive behavior into a calculated process.