Content and knowledge engineering – an integrative perspective

Having rapid access to needed information has become a crucial precondition for successful participation in economic, cultural and social processes. Nowadays, society and organizations are dependent on a complex system of digital information flows and electronic publishing. New uses of information and communication technology (ICT) are spreading and their impact is apparent in many aspects of our daily lives – at home, at work and in contact with government agencies, in shops and banks, in schools and universities.

Over the last few decades ICT has gained an important role in satisfying such needs, yet its success at doing so is far from undisputed. Some problems are technical in nature, but even more often problems occur in the application of the technique. The fact that software is often difficult to use has a number of negative consequences, such as bad user performance, wrong decisions and even complete abandonment of a system. In addition, the introduction of ICT in intra- and interorganizational contacts may demand a complete redesign of the work, often requiring extensive training of employees and redefinition of processes both private and public. Clearly, taking users, organizations and interorganizational cooperation better into account affords a prime opportunity for improvement in design and deployment of technology. Although there is a continuous supply of new technology that addresses such issues, sizeable problems remain with the development of technical solutions into usable and effective systems that accurately mirror and support intra- and interorganizational processes.

Such problems are addressed at the Center for Content and Knowledge Engineering (CCKE), especially in its Master’s Program, where access and use of digital content and knowledge are approached from an integrative perspective. We don’t only concentrate on making existing techniques user-friendly; rather, our graduate and research program addresses the development of theory, methods and techniques of access and use of ICT. In particular, CCKE focuses on the whole life cycle of content – from creation to adaptation – and the interaction with and communication processes between humans and computer systems within organizational contacts. Within these broad themes special attention is paid to the following three core areas:

• Content Management and Content Processing Management of content within and between ‘intelligent’ multimedia objects (i.e. XML), integrated with human aspects such as individual, enterprise-wide and across-enterprise requirements and functionality, usability, semantics and personalization (more info...).

• Cognition and Communication: Development of computer systems capable of representing and reasoning about a domain of interest, with a view to solving problems and giving advice, integrated with human aspects of the use of such systems, regarding knowledge elicitation, use and embedding in an organization (more info...).

• Organization and Information: Typically for the approach within CKE is the studying of the processes mentioned in the broader context of organizations and society in general. The area of Organization and Information is mainly covered by the master Business Informatics, the second master offered by Information Science. In this core area, both the developmental and use aspects of information flow and work organization are addressed, as well as managing entry, updates, storage and distribution of information within and between organizations. Optional courses can be chosen from the master program Business Informatics (more info...).

All the areas (Content Management and Content Processing, Cognition and Communication, Organization and Information) are based on a common, multidisciplinary fundament of methods and techniques, partly from Informatics and Information Science, partly from empirical social sciences. A number of optional master courses provide the opportunity to specialize on one of the mentioned areas.

The CKE Master’s program will provide a stimulating atmosphere in which students will actively participate in group activities, do projects, and will be involved in ongoing research, both on fundamental questions and on applications. The Master’s program is internationally oriented: the program is open to foreign students, and courses can be given in English. In addition, students will have the opportunity to follow courses and do projects at Dutch and foreign universities and institutes. There are student exchange programs with universitites in Finland, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Italy and the USA. Also foreign students regularly attend the CKE program or parts of it.

The curriculum and a description both of the educational approach to these areas and the core (mandatory) coursework can be found in the next sections, followed by a specification of admission criteria and procedure.