Managing Experience Knowledge about the River Ilm

The Institute of Ecology from the University of Jena contributed a major part to the long-term project "Regeneration- and Functioning-Analysis of Degraded Ecosystems" (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: GRK 266/1-96). This project has been investigating since 1996 (until 2005) the regeneration of the stream Ilm (Thuringia, Germany). This is the continuation of an investigation lasting from 1991 to 1994 (BMBF 0339310F). Overall we have seven independent institutes and around 35 scientists involved in the aquatic part of this project.

Available Experience Knowledge

Experience knowledge was available for the analysis of the contamination, the functionality and the regeneration of the river Ilm. At the beginning of the research the main focus was to document the contamination and the abiotic factors as well as to gain a basic understanding of the ecosystem. Of course, the recovery of the aquatic community was investigated very intensively, because of the fast regeneration process; the retention and turnover characteristics of the stream were investigated in the second phase. In the concluding phase the aim is to integrate knowledge about the separate mechanisms. Consequently, the available knowledge is divided among separate but not independent investigations

Problem

In the project considered here, most investigations were done during 21 PhD studies since 1991. Thus, the results and the experience knowledge of this long-term investigation are strongly partitioned. Most of the results have been published in PhD theses or are contained in separate publications. Those attempting integration are confronted with the problem that this knowledge is only informally available; e.g. it is stored as text documents, scientific figures, data sheets or multimedia files. The process of storage, retrieval and visualization of such knowledge is very time-consuming and strongly depends on the authorized scientist. If this particular scientist leaves, the integration process and the expert knowledge are often lost for the project. Therefore, it was necessary to provide a tool that supports the process of storage, retrieval and visualization and ensures that the contents are available to everybody involved in the project.

A second major subdivision is only available as expert knowledge. In ecology it typically takes many years to fully understand the relationships and the functionality of the investigated ecosystem. For this reason, some knowledge only reaches the state of uncertain or soft knowledge. Most scientists will not publish such soft knowledge and when they leave a long-term investigation project this information is lost for the project. On the other hand, during further investigation and by adding more facts, soft knowledge could turn into documented experience knowledge. For this reason, we need to provide an easy-to-use tool that can be applied to collect items of knowledge from scientists, even if they are no longer on-site.