Form 9.B Project Summary

Chron:

971170

Proposal

Number:

06.10-3474A

Project Title:

Concept Map-Directed Hyperlinking for

Collaborative Design

Technical Abstract (Limit 200 words)

NASA, which depends on the services of many

diverse units to accomplish its missions, is

challenged by a multiplicity of information and the

geographical distribution of its personnel working

towards a common goal. This Phase I effort

proposes a novel technology developed within a

cognitive framework to fulfill the collaborative

design and information sharing needs of NASA

multi-operator teams. Our initial effort is focused

on geographically distributed operators who

generate information products and deploy these

products to a central server. Our Concept

Map-Directed Hyperlinking for Collaborative

Design has three development phases: 1)

identifying the relationships and dependencies

among pieces of information needed and generated

by operators via knowledge elicitation; 2) using the

results from the knowledge elicitation to construct a

concept map to blueprint the cognitive processes of

a multi-operator team; and 3) developing a

server-side software agent to generate hyperlinks,

directed by the concept map, between similar and

related information. Our approach is unique in that

it automatically generates meaningful hyperlinks

among information residing on the server, therefore

facilitating information sharing in a way that

corresponds naturally to the team cognitive

process.

Potential Commercial Applications (Limit 200 words)

The technology developed under the Phase I effort

has several potential commercial applications.

Market areas that can be targeted include the

Internet, corporate intranets, and other large

networks. Specific applications include: 1)

automatic hyperlinking capability for

Internet/intranet-based research groups; 2)

corporate data sharing through hyperlinking; 3)

intelligent-agent directed hyperlinking; and 4)

prevention of dangling hyperlinks.

Name and Address of Principal Investigator (Name,

Organization Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip)

Christine Illgen

Charles River Analytics

55 Wheeler Street

Cambridge , MA 02138-1125

Name and Address of Offeror (Firm Name, Mail Address,

City/State/Zip)

Greg L. Zacharias

Charles River Analytics

55 Wheeler Street

Cambridge , MA 02138-1125