Effective knowledge sharing based on symbiotic computing and its application to networked cooperative works

We propose a new knowledge sharing scheme to effectively support networked cooperative works in this paper. Our scheme controls information flow from Real Space (RS) to Digital Space (DS) and reverse direction, based on the concept of "Symbiotic Computing". In practice, our scheme controls the availability of shared workspace in DS for cooperative works, according to the situation of tasks and users in RS, in order to accelerate the progress of the works. Using this scheme, advanced support to improve quality of intellectual cooperative works can be realized. In this paper, we apply our proposed scheme to a group learning domain. This is an educational activity domain where group members, including a teacher and several students cooperatively solve given problems. From experimental results, we found that the cooperative problem solving by the teacher and students were accelerated. We also confirmed that the learning outcomes were improved. Finally, we verified that our system can enhance the group learning effects by controlling the availability of the shared workspace based on the progress of the group learning process.