Adaptive Support for Distributed Collaboration The Adaptive Web

Through interaction with others, a person develops multiple perspectives that become the basis for innovation and the construction of new knowledge. This chapter discusses the challenges facing emerging web-based technologies that enable distributed users to discover and construct new knowledge collaboratively. Examples include advanced collaborative and social information filtering technology that not only helps users discover knowledge, peers, and relevant communities, but also plays a powerful role in facilitating and mediating their interaction. As the internet extends around the world and interconnects diverse cultures, the adaptive web will be challenged to provide a personalized knowledge interface that carries new perspectives to diverse communities. It will play the role of an interface for knowledge construction, a mediator for communication and understanding, and a structured channel through which knowledge is created, interpreted, used, and recreated by other users.