RIMA

a Colabo.Space component that describes communities, their members, expertise, interests, initiatives, projects, and sub-communities

RIMA (Resources and Interests Mapping App/API) initiated from our need to create the first component necessary for understanding each other (in Knowledge Federation (KF) group, etc.) better, learning about shared interests between peers/members, and creating an online semantic “market” to match our peers' areas of expertise with requirements. This model was reiterated and improved during dedicated sessions of the KF working group.

The proposed component has already initiated fruitful dialogues through Colabo.Space and is in the process of building up future initiatives (projects) in Protopia, KF, ReMaking Tesla, and other communities. It also gives a basis/motivation for networking members of these communities who did not have the opportunity to meet in life.

This component provides the mapping of a plethora of areas of expertise (interests) and initiatives happening among group members into a visually interactive and understandable graph/network. It will also suggest otherwise hidden possibilities and benefits of a particular networking situation. Through its use, members become (visually) interconnected by their mutual interests and areas of expertise.

RIMA is not seen (only) as a standalone tool, but as a component, or as a layer in a system.

A system that we can integrate RIMA in is a sort of SoS (System of Systems) or SoA. It uses shared Data with the rest of the system and thus semantically upgrades system functionality. Тhis "social universe" has a deep and wide role: to be an underlying (and transparent) layer (RIMA Knowledge Pool) that provides data for many tools/services (that may be part of Colabo.Space or some other independent initiatives) so that they can change their landscape or semantically drive communication with the end users.

Through the current development of RIMA, we are working on building a knowledge space consisting of members, interests, and initiatives. It will also provide for clean, directed and topic-based communication.

RIMA's original features were developed from the WhoAmI system, presented by the authors at the KF 2012 conference.