Supporting the Sense-Making Processes of Web Users by Using a Proxy Server

This paper presents a study on how we can support knowledge creation - especially a process called comprehension - in a Web 2.0 environment by providing new functionalities to users of existing Web services. The contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, a framework for providing new functionalities is presented. Secondly, a prototype Web service is implemented and evaluated. The prototype uses Wikipedia as an example and as a knowledge repository. The emphasis is on the prototype, a service that allows us to 1) insert sticky notes in Wikipedia articles, 2) enhance the translation capabilities of Wikipedia, and 3) highlight texts in Wikipedia. The analysis of the prototype service shows that we can provide new functionalities to Web users with a proxy server and that the implemented tools offers some support for knowledge creation process called comprehension. The translation service proved especially useful.