A knowledge repository is a system than supports all kind of data, from a variety of heterogeneous sources, such as structured data (e.g. relational databases), semi-formatted data (e.g. XML, HTML RDF files), text documents (e.g. plain text, word processor and PDF files).

The primary functions of a knowledge repository are the capture, storage, maintenance and retrieval of knowledge from all the available sources. Such functions must include both capabilities for assimilating knowledge from outside (such as competitive intelligence systems acquiring information) and capabilities for creating new knowledge from the reinterpretation and reformulation of existing and newly acquired information.

The chief challenge of knowledge repositories is to insert and maintain integrated all the heterogeneous data objects.

Tags: data