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Thus, in recognition that human networks can be extremely valuable, the idea suggested the need for a system
that would help a community of individuals to seek help from one another. We call it a "Help-Exchange"
system.
The Arbitrated Help-Exchange Concept
The concept is based on three very simple ideas: 1) that everyone is an expert in some domain, 2) that
expertise in one domain might be traded for expertise in another and 3) that a mechanism is needed to spread
the demand for help so that no single individual is overloaded. In its simplest form, the concept is like matchmaking
coupled with a barter system. The system implementing Help-Exchange matches people with
questions with other people who might provide answers, keeps score, and balances the load of questions on any
user. It is arbitrated in that it serves as a fair and neutral intermediary between the users, assuring anonymity
if desired. There is also an underlying assumption of good will on the part of all users. Beyond that, it is
mostly transparent in the resulting dialog.
Description of the Help-Exchange System
A prototype of the Help-Exchange system was built during the 1994/5 academic year as a task in the National
Research Enterprise project [Losleben 96] at Stanford University. It was first demonstrated in August 1995,
alpha tested with a small test group during the late summer and is presently in extended beta test with a larger
community of users at Stanford and MIT. The World Wide Web provided key enabling technology in the form
of a standard communication protocol, universally available client software, easy-to-develop user interfaces and
direct access to the underlying relational data base. The system uses a parallel email communication path to
alert users and incorporates a mailbox analogy inside the system to classify correspondence.
Taxonomy of Disciplines
Like most information systems, some mechanism is needed to classify knowledge and to label the classes with
descriptive titles which carry sufficient connotation to communicate the content of the class. We elected to use
a hierarchical taxonomy consisting of simple English words or phrases to describe the categories. This is
admittedly prone to error in interpretation due to subtle differences in semantic meaning. In addition, the
taxonomic organization is developed at the discretion of the system administrator and therefore also biased by
that individual's view of how expertise might be organized. We chose to not address these difficult research
issues [Gruber 93] in the interest of building a simple tool which is easy to use across a broad taxonomy.
Most interactions with the Help-Exchange system begin with the taxonomy. By convention, the higher levels
of the taxonomy represent more general knowledge while the lower areas represent more specialized
knowledge. New users register their area(s) of expertise by selectively expanding the taxonomy until they
reach a level of specialization that they feel appropriate to their expertise. A user may register in multiple
areas if they feel that they have expertise in those areas. Clearly these are self-appointed experts and that is a
weakness of the system. Still, this is consistent with the assumption of good will on the part of all users.
When a user seeks to pose a question to the system, the taxonomy is used to identify the most likely category of
knowledge. The user is provided with an indication of the number of experts who are available (in another
words, who have registered and haven't fulfilled their obligation to the system). Of course, if no experts are
available for a category, that category may not be selected and the user may elect to submit the question at a
higher and more general level of expertise.
When an expert receives a question which is not classified properly, the expert can refer the question to an
expert in another category, again by using the taxonomy. The expert can also refer the question to another
expert in the same category if he/she does not feel qualified to answer.
The Barter System