Due to the growing importance of professional virtual communities (PVCs) to share professional knowledge in practice, this research proposes an integrated success factor model of PVCs encompassing (1) the componential aspect of a VC system from the operator’s perspective, (2) the knowledge-sharing aspect of a professional community from the members’ perspective, and (3) the VC’s life cycle perspective. An analytical framework was established from theories integrating dimensions from the perspective of operators and members and the virtual community life cycle. To collect and categorize the detailed items of success factors, a systematic literature review and a deductive content analysis were conducted with 64 selected articles. The content analysis results represented the specific perspective of PVCs distinguished from general virtual communities, highlighting factors such as reciprocity, content quality, self-efficacy, and recognition of contributions. Moreover, the inherent patterns in the model contingent to PVC life cycle stages were captured. First, different priorities in the relevant success factor dimensions were identified. Second, the patterns of changing values along with the life- cycle were recognized differently from the operators’ and member’s standpoints. This model can be utilized for the service providers of PVCs in terms of the business and design of PVCs as a strategic management tool and a design guideline.

As humans have different levels of expertise, this differentiation becomes one of the obstacles to the construction of knowledge comprehension by exchanging knowledge. To overcome this problem, we decompose experts' knowledge presentation while aiming to build knowledge comprehension in novice agents using concept maps as a knowledge representation of multiplication problems. The proposed collaborative interaction model is a mediator of communication built by CLARION. This collaborative interaction model may be a solution to overcome the problems which arise when building group collaboration systems for learning purposes.

In this work, we implemented a localized collective intelligence tool called the Tree of Knowledge that represents the on-going knowledge activities in a building. The Tree of Knowledge can increase the awareness of who knows what in the building and trigger more face-to-face interactions and collaborations. We pointed out the importance of localized, motivation, informal, and openness in designing such collective intelligence tools. Further applications and implications are discussed.

Emergency communication systems (ECS) are a key element in collaborations among different public safety organizations. The need for interoperability in emergency communication systems has hastened the development of interoperable communication technology that is an enabling technology to automatically identify environmental variables including appropriate radio frequencies and to connect different networks used by different organizations. Even though the technology has been researched from many perspectives and has shown that is possible to connect different organizations, there still remain many issues in terms of socio-cognitive aspects. Thus, this study examines the socio-cognitive dimensions of interoperability, which equal the technical dimensions of the problem in importance. The existential-phenomenological study reported here used semistructured interviews to reconceptualize interoperability in the public safety communication domain. Based on 11 interviews with public safety workers, five important factors were identified that have a major impact on the effectiveness of interoperable groups: information sharedness, operational awareness, communication readiness, adaptiveness, and coupledness. Based on these main concepts, high-level suggestions are provided to guide the design of a new public safety communication system. The results can be directly applied to identify the requirements of communication systems and can be extended to design collaboration systems under stressful environments.