Conceptual navigation in knowledge management environments using NavCon

This article presents conceptual navigation and NavCon, an architecture that implements this navigation in World Wide Web pages. NavCon architecture makes use of ontology as metadata to contextualize user search for information. Based on ontologies, NavCon automatically inserts conceptual links in Web pages. By using these links, the user may navigate in a graph representing ontology concepts and their relationships. By browsing this graph, it is possible to reach documents associated with the user desired ontology concept. This Web navigation supported by ontology concepts we call conceptual navigation. Conceptual navigation is a technique to browse Web sites within a context. The context filters relevant retrieved information. The context also drives user navigation through paths that meet his needs. A company may implement conceptual navigation to improve user search for information in a knowledge management environment. We suggest that the use of an ontology to conduct navigation in an Intranet may help the user to have a better understanding about the knowledge structure of the company.