We present iMapping, a diagrammatic zooming and nesting based approach for visually structuring information objects on the desktop with a special focus on personal knowledge management. It was designed based on a set of requirements gathered from the analysis of existing knowledge mapping techniques from a cognitive science point of view. We also briefly introduce a prototypical implementation.
Knowledge-intensive organizations that carry out many Knowledge-Intensive Business Processes (KIBP), seek to improve and enhance their KIBP for gaining competitive advantages. These organizations need to develop their Knowledge Management (KM) infrastructure of KIBP, starting from knowledge audit that is a necessary first step in any KM initiative. As KM infrastructure integrates social and technological disciplines, we developed a combined Socio-Engineering Knowledge Audit Methodology (SEKAM) for a systematic audit of the KM infrastructure in the context of KIBP. In this paper we present and discuss the conceptual framework of SEKAM and its instruments developed in this research.
We first describe the state of the art of organizational learning, mentioning the theories and types of it. The need of organizational learning, contributing processes and the main processes are further explained. Various methods of organizational learning are introduced. A template for a short description is proposed, which gives an overview about existing methods. The template then offers the possibility to indicate which method can be applied on Enterprise Knowledge Maturing.
Knowledge sharing between individuals has traditionally been conducted using faceto- face conversation. In the networked society – initially formed by telegraphs and the phone and nowadays powered by the Internet – many acts of knowledge sharing are carried out in a mediated fashion. While this typically introduces a number of problems in the knowledge sharing process, it also offers certain advantages. In this paper, we describe a framework for analyzing different modes of knowledge sharing. Furthermore, we line out the concept of “need-driven” knowledge sharing to address limitations in current mediated knowledge sharing approaches.
In industrial and educational practice, learning environments are designed and implemented by experts from many different fields, reaching from traditional software development and product management to pedagogy and didactics. Workplace and lifelong learning, however, implicate that learners are more self-motivated, capable, and self-confident in achieving their goals and, consequently, tempt to consider that certain development tasks can be shifted to end-users in order to facilitate a more flexible, open, and responsive learning environment. With respect to streams like end-user development and opportunistic design, this paper elaborates a methodology for user-driven environment design for action-based activities. Based on a former research approach named ‘Mash-Up Personal Learning Environments’ (MUPPLE) we demonstrate how workplace and lifelong learners can be empowered to develop their own environment for collaborating in learner networks and which prerequisites and support facilities are necessary for this methodology.
This paper introduces a new process-oriented visualisation method for risk assessment in groups. Today, in corporate risk assessment there is a lack in visual facilitation methods for collaborative assessments of risks. Existing visualisation methods emphasize analytical purposes. However, they are not useful for the facilitation of risk assessments in a group, such as the board of management. The described risk visualization approach offers a visual dialogue oriented approach to improve the quality of organisational risk-assessment in groups and goes hand in hand with already established risk management processes and systems. Secondly, this paper introduces the “ETH Baugarten Value Lab”, where we tested the tool on touch displays.
Bringing together knowledge bearers is a crucial factor for innovation in highperformance sports. Since the capabilities of a growing amount of nations are converging, every detail counts to win a competition. To harness the competence, experience and knowledge of various stakeholders, the Innovation Network Alpine Skiing has developed a custom-designed knowledge and idea management system. Having adapted Web 2.0 technologies to the requirements of innovation in the special environment of high-performance sports, the knowledge workers are enabled to easily contribute to the innovation process. The Wiki-based solution called “SkiBaserl”1 is successfully used in several development projects within the German Skiing Association. This article delivers an outline of the development process, the implementation and an evaluation of the tool.
An important activity for the learner while learning is the reflection on the learning path and strategy. So far, not many tools provide an automatic support for the reflection on the learning activities. Here, we describe our approach to enable reflection with the help of usage and contextual metadata. We describe how we capture usage information and provide algorithms like the identification of similar users, contents and tools for reflection like a learner Zeitgeist application or the elicitation of learning paths.
30.000 advisory calls per year! How to analyze, rate and improve them interactively? For getting these goals a novel technique is introduced, which is based on a structure similar to a music score. Via a “duet”, guided by the advisor called, the main contents of the dialogue are extracted and stored automatically. At this, trained speech recognition is applied for the (known) advisor’s part for monitoring and controlling the call’s course, and keyword spotting is used for the (unknown) “customer” to pick out instances from sets of expected values. The results thereof fill an abstract score annotated to the call conducted. Then, because of the strong structure of such scores, the archive of all these dialogues is an ideal base for retrieval, exploration, comparison and clustering of calls, using e.g. graphical tools like knowCube®.
An internally developed knowledge transfer methodology ensures at Credit Suisse that irreplaceable know-how (implicit and explicit) remains within the firm – even when keypersons leave, e.g. retirement, internal job mobility, extended absence or general leaving. The methodology tested in theory and in praxis was developed by supporting over 70 keypersons and became part of the organisation in 2008. By covering general aspects of knowledge transfer as well as enhancing the human capital development in the business, the methodology provides a basis for organisational development: Due to transparent tasks and functions efficient and sustainable changes are possible.
Evaluating success of knowledge management (KM) is a difficult undertaking, yet without a decent approach to show evidence about its value, KM initiatives might not be sustainable as already evident in many abandoned projects. Although there have been a number of theoretical approaches on evaluating success of KM, so far organizations find it difficult to design an evaluation effort and as a consequence many often only employ the most straightforward approaches such as adding some questions to a general user survey without much reflection as to e.g., who, what, how, why and when they measure and what consequences should be taken upon the results. This paper aids evaluation by providing an interrogative framework for designing evaluation initiatives. Its applicability is shown with the help of a real-world case study evaluating the KM system @sk!.
Although receiving significant attention in management research, the organizational competence concept still remains difficult to apply, due to the vagueness of the theoretical construct, and due to the lack of pragmatic procedures to make it actionable. According to recent research, knowledge visualization may mitigate the elusiveness of the competence concept by assisting the identification, management, and communication of competences. In this paper, we thus review the academic literature in search for conceptual representations designed to support organizational competence mapping at the intra-, and inter-organizational level. By taking a synoptic overview of the collected representations, we single out the building blocks of competence visualization, and develop a corresponding classification. Drawing on this classification, we position twelve existing competence representation methods in an integrative framework to assist practitioners in selecting the right representation method and to inform scholars about future research and development needs.
With the advent of more light-weight technologies for connecting contents and functions provided by diverse application systems, called mashups, also individuals with their personal knowledge environments can benefit from arranging services flexibly to help them fulfil their knowledge needs. These personal, collaborative initiatives are often associated with trial-and-error, grass-roots level approaches which need an organizational and technical infrastructure to guide them without loosing the momentum created in these fragmented knowledge management activities performed by individuals, communities or in projects in an organization. Based on a discussion of these issues, this paper outlines the foundations for a knowledge service governance model to guide these activities.
Classifying phenomena is a key step to building new knowledge, especially in the early stages of a research process. It can bring about multiple advantages and insights, such as overview and comparison. Yet it also poses several risks and constraints. Thankfully, challenges can be over-come by re-classifying items in a domain with alternative classification principles, which lead to new insights or perspectives, as well as highlight previously neglected considerations. This process can be supported by graphic representations. Visualizing the drawn (and redrawn) distinctions can make a classification accessible and versatile, which makes it easier to compare with other classifications. Visualizing classifications can augment the entire research process, including hypothesis formation, testing, interpretation and result reporting. There is no systematic overview of methods to represent (especially qualitative) classifications graphically. This paper fills that gap in the literature. We distinguish between four types of visual classifications, based on their differing ability to emphasize hierarchies or group relations. We label these four types as compilations, configurations, layers, and trees. We analyze their benefits for the research process and point out potential risks to consider when using visualization for classifications purposes in social science research.
According to recent neurobiological and psychological research by A. Damasio respectively G. Gigerenzer it is the aim of this paper to point out the limits of plainly cognitive approaches to decision-making and problem-solving (in economy) and – by showing the significance of emotions and (gut) feelings in decision respectively problem-solving processes to contribute to an essential improvement of Knowledge Management leading to a decisive competitive advantage of enterprises.
With the accelerated growth of the blogosphere, automatically analyzing blogs (specifically extracting information) becomes increasingly important. Here, we focus on the fundamental task of automatically detecting blog topics in order to support users to explore a collection of blogs by focusing on different particular topics according to their interests. We show that topic exploration can be significantly improved (by up to 33%) by using a novel approach to
Extreme Programming focuses on spreading knowledge through many collaborative practices like pair programming, planning game, and retrospectives. The basic idea behind these practices is to share the work specific knowledge across the development teams as well as the management quarters. This knowledge sharing is said to have an accelerated effect when it is combined with the retrospectives analysis of the knowledge gained and the process performed. This inherent property of Knowledge Management (KM) facilitated by retrospective analysis is being used to teach Extreme Programming (XP) methodology as a graduate level Software Engineering (SE) course and is showing a notable effect on the learning process. The paper describes the KM issues in XP practices and how these issues are being managed for the students to present them with a profound learning experience.
This paper proposes an approach for automatically extracting symptoms associated to a given disease from semantic-based descriptions of health records of patients affected by an investigated pathology. The proposal implements non-standard reasoning services developed in Description Logics for the individuation of informative commonalities in concept collections and can make significantly easier the diagnosis process of rare and unknown diseases.
Maturity models are popular instruments used, e.g., to rate capabilities of maturing elements and select appropriate actions to take the elements to a higher level of maturity. Their application areas are wide spread and range from cognitive science to business applications and engineering. Although there are many maturity models reported in scientific and non-scientific literature, the act of how to develop a maturity model is for the most part unexplored. Many maturity models simply – and vaguely – build on their, often well-known, predecessors without critical discourse about how appropriate the assumptions are that form the basis of these models. This research sheds some light on the construction of maturity models by analysing 16 representative maturity models with the help of a structured content analysis. The results are transformed into a set of questions which can be used for the (re-)creation of maturity models and are answered with the help of the case example of a knowledge maturity model. Furthermore, a definition of the term maturity model is developed from the study’s results.
Pattern based task management has been proposed as a promising approach to work experience reuse in knowledge intensive work environments. While initial work has focused on the conceptualization and development of a generic framework, the process and user interaction of the task pattern lifecycle has not been addressed. In this paper, we introduce task copy augmented by Abstraction Services as a novel approach to facilitate task pattern creation and maintenance in a semi-automatic fashion. Also, we develop the architecture to demonstrate the underlying ideas by leveraging the advantage of semantic technologies.
The concept of knowledge worker has been around for fifty years and many information and communication technologies have been implemented in order to support this type of work. Workplaces have changed substantially, but information is scarce about how actual knowledge workers handle knowledge in their workplaces. This paper presents the results of a joint study of knowledge workers’ workplaces in five organisations representing a diverse sample in terms of size, sector and technology intensity. The results suggest that a number of person types with predominant ways of handling knowledge can be favourably used for designing supportive tools and infrastructures.
Common graph visualizations tend to produce edge crossings and overlaps when used to display resource collections that are highly interrelated via shared properties. This hampers visual exploration and understanding of relationships between resources and can negatively affect information and knowledge management. In this paper, we present a new approach that visualizes resources and their shared properties in chains to prevent dense graphs and to better support the exploration of relationships. We explain the basic idea, describe an appropriate algorithm and discuss optimization issues. Furthermore, we report on a comparative evaluation showing that this kind of graph visualization supports particularly the visual tracking of relationships and the identification of commonalities between resources.
Professional translation services are often perceived as quite expensive and people tend to go for the lowest price possible when commissioning a translation. To stay capable of competing with lay translators, professional translators have to continuously increase the efficiency of their work process. Researching information consumes a considerable part of the time needed for producing a high-quality translation. This work evaluates whether Web 2.0 applications with their social and collaborative characteristics have the potential to support the professional translator in his daily work. Here the main focus of attention is on a possible increase in efficiency of search and knowledge management processes. In phase one of the study we conducted a survey to determine the translator’s preferred search tactics, knowledge resources, and communication channels. Secondly, we conducted user tests on a Web 2.0 social media sharing platform followed by open interviews to find further evidence for the potential of Web 2.0-based collaborative applications in the professional translator’s business.
In this paper we present a novel, semantic-based approach for supporting the software development process in a distributed environment. The approach is based on collecting and preserving knowledge used in the software development process in order to support its usage in similar cases later on. One of the main advantages of this approach is possibility to collect required knowledge automatically by observing the behaviour of a software engineer. The approach has been implemented in the TEAM software system and evaluated in three real-world use cases.
A fundamental problem in processing 3D shapes is insufficient knowledge engineering. On the one hand there are numerous methods to design and manufacture 3D shapes in the real world. On the other hand, numerous digital methods for representing and processing shape have been developed in computer graphics. Most of these methods make certain assumptions about the kind of 3D objects that they will be used for: A surface smoothing algorithm, for instance, is not well suited for assemblies of rectangular blocks or for pipe networks. However, it is currently not possible to formulate the properties of a given shape explicitly in an commonly agreed way. This paper is a first step towards classifying structural descriptions of man-made shape. By listing construction principles and principles for their combination it follows a phenomenological approach. The purpose is to illustrate the inherent complexity of the domain, and to lay out the foundation for subsequent thorough knowledge engineering.
The paper makes an attempt to develop a business classification scheme for organizing information assets in an international organization. It proposes a conceptual model, to explain and enhance the understanding of complex issues involved in the organization of information in international knowledge-based organizations. Eight different international organizations were studied, including the European Union (EU), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and were classified according to their functional orientation. Over 40 interviews were conducted, with organizational leaders, knowledge managers, IT managers and human resources managers. The project also reviewed the current literature on managing knowledge, identifying aspects relevant to the international organization context. Organizational leaders, knowledge managers, IT managers and consultants involved in creating and implementing knowledge management initiatives aimed at process improvements in international organizations context could benefit from the reflections and learning insights from this paper. This paper does not address efficiency matters from the political or governing sphere, nor does it propose specific programmatic changes to work of international organizations; rather it presents a pragmatic “bottom-up” approach, based on case studies and interviews conducted.
An increasing amount of companies are interested in using the innovative potential of Web 2.0 technologies. This paper describes the main results of a comparative analysis of several quantitative empirical studies on the use of Web 2.0 in enterprises. This includes findings about diffusion, possibilities of application, benefits, barriers, and factors of success for the use of Web 2.0 in enterprises. The findings of this comparative study show effective and reasonable ways of using Web 2.0 in enterprises.
Nowadays Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are described as the use of different social software tools for learning and teaching. The use of common web browsers often is a precondition to fulfil the requirements of social software tools. In this publication a new perspective as well as a couple of prototypes is presented to allow a more independent solution in this context. Using the new JavaFX technology so called widgets are implemented which can be used on different devices as well as different operating systems. Furthermore also the web browser can be replaced by a browser instance. It can be summarized that through the use of widgets the learning environment of the future can be more individualized and personalized.
We introduce the concept of organizational knowledge maturing based on the idea of developing knowledge assets. We explain the dimensions that have to be considered and introduce the Knowledge Maturing Dimension Framework to measure the maturity level. Finally we describe service classes as the building blocks of a future organizational learning and maturing environment (OLME).
This paper reports on a meta-analysis of two qualitative studies that use visualisations of user interactions in Web2.0 systems in order to support self-directed and incidental learning. This analysis focuses on the identification of design principles for supporting learning beyond the well structured conditions of educational institutions. The studies applied a reference architecture for context-aware systems together with a contextual framework that is based on the theory of situated learning. Although combining these concepts lead to satisfactory results, it appeared that the design of visualisations for supporting selfdirected learning requires further constraints. The given meta analysis identified the two design principles “perspective” and “contrast”. This paper discusses how these principles were present in both prior studies.
Search queries are typically interpreted as specification of information need of a user. Typically the search query is either interpreted as is or based on the context of a user, being for instance a user profile, his/her previously undertaken searches or any other background information. The actual intent of the user – the goal s/he wants to achieve with information retrieval – is an important part of a user’s context. In this paper we present the results of an exploratory study on the interplay between the goals of users and their search behavior in multimedia retrieval.
Small-world networks represent a decentralised network topology in which several actors are strongly connected with each other. A high clustering coefficient and a high number of short paths within a social network characterise such a network. Particularly in the context of inter-organisational knowledge transfer among R&D organisations, the structure of small-world networks appears significant for effective knowledge transfer. This paper reports on an investigation into the nature of inter-organisational knowledge transfer among R&D organisations. The topology of a social network is explored using UCINET social network analysis software. From these findings, implications are drawn for ICT support at an interorganisational level.
There are plenty of projects aimed at incorporating semantic information into present day document processing. The main problem is their real-world usability. E-learning is one of the areas which can take advantage of the semantically described documents. In this paper we would like to introduce a framework of cooperating tools which can help extract, store, visualize semantics in this area.
This contribution introduces a placement web-service which has been developed in the context of the TENCompetence Integrated Project. The web-service uses Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to calculate similarity between documents in learner portfolios and content in the current learning network of the learner. In the first part of the paper the placement problem in learning networks is introduced. Next we discuss the architecture of the current web-service prototype and describe our evaluation approach. Several limitations and future developments are discussed at the end of the paper.
Motivational aspects in knowledge management have so far largely been considered from the perspective of designing and implementing incentives that influence the extrinsic motivation of employees to participate, contribute, share etc. This is increasingly considered problematic so that this contribution takes a more holistic viewpoint by analyzing and systematizing barriers that have an impact on the motivation to engage in knowledge maturing activities. Based on a collaborative ethnographically informed study and targeted semistructured interviews, a model is presented that decomposes the motivational aspects. Furthermore, it is presented how motivational aspect can be incorporated into the design of learning support systems.
Semantic Desktops hold provide intelligent information-management environments that respond to users’ needs. An important requirement for developing such environments is that the underlying ontology reflects the users’ work context. For specialized work domains, where people deal with rich information sources in a context-specific manner, there may be a significant amount of domain-specific information available in text documents, emails and other domain-dependent data sources. Our goal is to support knowledge management by to using this information in a Semantic Desktop. We have extended an existing semantic desktop by introducing contentand structure-based information extraction, domain-specific ontological extensions as well as visualization of semantic entities. These extensions address needs in strategic decision making, where domain-specific, well-structured knowledge is available but scattered in documents and communications. The goal for this type of domain-aware semantic desktop is to assist decision makers, such as military commanders, in sense making.
In resource based learning settings learners have to cope with a multitude of resources. One big challenge for learners is managing the knowledge contained in these resources appropriately. We discuss some existing knowledge modeling methods and related tools with regard to learning scenarios. This paper focuses on presenting a knowledge modeling approach based on personal knowledge networks. Aggregation and mapping of these personal networks can form a community network supporting exchange of knowledge. Furthermore a proof-of-concept is described.
We introduce a framework for a new idea tool Note, which gathers, fosters and manages innovative ideas. Note supports the development of organizational memory and is connected to the practices of organizational innovativeness. The tool utilizes text mining methods in idea processing, management and visualization and is thus a new approach in idea management software. The tool is under development.
Based on an analysis of existing tools and approaches and literature from the areas of design and cognitive science, we identify a set of functional requirements to be met by diagrammatic knowledge mapping techniques and tools in order to be cognitively adequate for extensive personal knowledge management. This collection of requirements can be used to evaluate existing tools or as a guideline for the design of novel knowledge mapping approaches and tools.
In this paper a modular authoring system for interactive videos is introduced. The system enables the author to edit the video and add annotations like images, text, hyperlinks to defined scenes or the whole video. It provides a video cutting tool to define scenes, a scene graph to realize non-linear flow of the video and a HTML editor to create text and link annotations. A project can be exported to a XML formatted file with a specific schema and Flash video format (flv) files, which can be interpreted by the project’s player. The system is designed to be used intuitively.
With the emerging trend ofWeb 3.0 and the resulting huge amount of usergenerated semantically-enriched data, improved ways of knowledge visualization and human computer interaction are needed. We present several techniques of visualizing particularly spatial knowledge in largely scalable, clear structured ontology trees on the web. In addition, we describe the representation of search results with a combined approach consisting of Ajax-based grids and Google Maps.