Component technologies are perceived as an important means to keep software architectures flexible. Flexibility offered by componenttechnologies typically addresses software developers at design time. However, the design of software which should support socialsystems, such as work groups or...

The Answer Garden supports knowledge sharing in two intertwined ways: by making relevant information retrievable and by mediating access to people with knowledge. We present a case study in which the Answer Garden approach was applied to encourage knowledge sharing in maintenance engineering of...