Use of multi-context systems for crossing boundaries

Abstract

This paper is about the introduction of multi-context systems as a framework. Multi-context systems consist of structured data enriched with attachments as additional resources like documents or web sites, and with add-ons like annotations, tags, ranks, etc. linked to it. Attachments and annotations are connected by hyperlinks to the structured data. Multi-context systems help define, capture, and analyze the different levels of data used and exchanged in a work group. A real multi-context system, a to-do list, is used to illustrate the practice around such an artifact to underline the importance of such systems. The analysis of to-do lists ended up first in a model and then in a prototype, which was implemented and evaluated. The prototype shows how multi-context systems are useful to overcome problems of boundary crossings between teams.