The Information Society builds on the convergence of information, communication and networking technologies and takes advantage of infrastructures like the Internet and the Web. The aim of the IST-Programme is to help to create a user friendly information society. Currently there is a large gap between the information needs of a user and the way information is made available online.

Within the On-To-Knowledge-Project we will develop tools and methods for supporting knowledge management relying on sharable and reusable knowledge ontologies. The technical backbone of On-To-Knowledge is the use of ontologies for the various tasks of information integration and mediation.

The application focus of On-To-Knowledge is the knowledge management in large and distributed organisations. This aspect of On-To-Knowledge is emphasised by three case studies in the areas of Organisational Memory of a large company, help desk functionality of a call centre, and the knowledge management in a virtual enterprise.