http://62.231.133.220/idea-eks-nav/papers/03-05-06/03-05-06.html

This paper presents a concise investigation and classification of the nature of identities and the role of names in knowledge management solutions. Identities and names, while being the very foundation upon which knowledge management solutions are built are also the least clearly explained and understood. This leads to a conflicting and often inconsistent use of identity and naming in any given solution. As we move towards integrated knowledge management solutions, identity has an even greater role to play in providing consistency and forming bridges between knowledge models. We begin this paper with a study of the different aspects of identity including 'thing identity', 'The Scope and Granularity of things to be identified', 'Assigning meaning and Published Identity', 'Identity Assignment and Resolution' and 'Identity Structure'. The next section introduces the idea of names and illustrates how they are different from identities. Throughout this paper we provide syntactic examples of the ideas discussed using several standards, including RDF and TopicMaps. We conclude this paper with a discussion about how identity and names could evolve and what future role they may expect to play in knowledge management solutions.