IBM has unveiled a new tool for knowledge sharing on the web, which it claims to provide users with an ‘actionshot’ of their browsing activity on the web in a reusable format that can be shared for future use.
The company said that the new tool is built on CoScripter, an ongoing research project launched at IBM Research – Almaden, to simplify web-based tasks and share knowledge of tasks and practices across an organisation. The CoScripter is a system for recording, automating and sharing processes performed in a web browser such as printing photos online, ordering business cards, opening a purchase order. Instructions for processes are recorded and stored on the CoScripter web site.
According to IBM, the CoScripter Reusable History allows people to record actions on the web in the background of a browser session and selectively publish logs of web browsing activity. It also allows people to share snippets of their relevant web activity with their social networks and colleagues on sites like Facebook or Twitter, publish them directly on their blog and share via email.
IBM said that the tool records everything users does on the web and captures a log of his or her web browsing activity. It has built in privacy controls and facilitates users to turn off the recording button as well as delete browsing sessions.
Laura Haas, director of computer science at IBM Research – Almaden, said: CoScripter Reusable History not only helps you remember what you have done on the web previously and share those steps with people in your networks; users can also tap into the valuable know-how of their colleagues to make time-consuming tasks easier to ultimately enable more efficiency and performance across an organisation.
