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.
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®.
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.
2D barcodes are capable of storing different kind of data. A significant number of new mobile phones come with a built-in camera. These technologies together with the fact that mobile phones are next to the owner most of the time are the foundation of a variety of interesting applications. In Japan more than 75% of all mobile phones do have already a preinstalled barcode reader, that allows the user to decode the incorporated information of a barcode. This procedure can be used to improve the user experience while simplifying the input of data into the mobile device. These 2D barcodes can be used to exchange information
between mobile phones and to connect to the mobile web. These days the Western World is gaining interest in this technology. In this paper the most important applications are introduced. The relevance to print media and the advertising industry is shown.
Our goal is increasing the users’ value and experience and decreasing the implementation time for web portals. To achieve this goal we adopt a subject-centric perspective on information architecture. The fundament of this approach is that portals should be driven by subject-centric models of the portals’ domains. Out of these domain models, the interaction and interface design of the portals is self-evident. Amongst others, the international industry standard Topic Maps is a portal technology and an implementation of the subjectcentric modelling paradigm. With ActiveTM we introduce a technology, which implements a Model-driven approach to automatically create domain-customised, subject-centric portal engines, based on Topic Maps. ActiveTM has proved as technique for reducing the implementation cost of portals enormously and the implied subject-centricness increases the users’ value and experience significantly.
In this paper we describe novel ideas and their prototypical implementation for the visualization of rule bases. In the creation of the visualization our approach considers not only the structure of a rule base but also records of its usage. We also discuss methods to address the challenges for visualization tools posed by rule bases that are large, created with high level knowledge acquisition tools or that contain low level rules that should remain hidden from the users.
This paper is on the aesthetic layout of n-ary trees with nodes of variable size, also referred to as generalized box-drawing. For this layout problem a few algorithms have been proposed, which differ in their runtime performance and the attained aesthetic criteria. We introduce a new approach to this layout problem, which is interesting because of both its simplicity and elegance, and which employs the following piggy-back metaphor: The original box-drawing problem, Π, is topologically reformulated as a layout problem with uniform node size, resulting in a new drawing problem Π, which then is handled by the best tree layout algorithm for uniform node size developed so far. The reformulation step can be done in linear time in the number of nodes of the original tree, resulting in overall linear time complexity. Compared to the existing approaches our approach fulfills more aesthetic criteria; experiments have also shown its efficiency in complex layout settings.
Today, reuse-oriented software engineering covers the process of the development and evolution of software systems by reusing existing experience (i.e., products, processes, and knowledge). One of the major problems of software reuse is the lack of knowledge and skills for understanding reusable experience. This paper explains how the reuse process can be used to support individual learning on the one hand, and how learning can improve the selection of reuse experience and their application on the other hand. The paper emphasizes the importance
of context in the domain of reuse and how context information can be used to compose socalled Learning Spaces from Learning Components. Learning Spaces didactically enrich reusable experience and enhance experiential learning. The approach uses Wikis as a base technology for presenting and structuring learning content.
Formats and Technologies in the Digital Mathematics Library Project
The main obstacle to easy accessing the vast amount of knowledge is the fact that they are not available in well-designed, standard, fully indexed electronic form, together with detailed metadata and full-text search capabilities. This paper is a case study of design issues in a subproject of WDML (World Digital Mathematics Library) aimed at digitizing valuable mathematical journals and books published in the Czech and Slovak Republics, to make them publicly available in digital form. We discuss here the design of the work-flow aiming at having mathematical knowledge stored in digital library. The key concept is a gradual enhancement of the digital material by ‘knowledge enhancing’ filters applied to the markup-rich XML data.
In this paper we introduce AdELE, a framework for adaptive e-learning utilising both eye tracking and content tracking technology. The framework is based upon the combination of fine-grained real-time eye tracking with synchronous content tracking, a user profiler, an adaptive multimedia learning environment, and a dynamic background library. The framework ensures not only adaptivity to the users’ preferences, knowledge level and the realtime tracking of their behaviour, but also ensures the relevance, accuracy and reliability of the knowledge provided.
PRO-TEACH-NET is a German e-learning project that aims to construct an internetbased learning environment for five partner universities based upon common teaching contents in product development for mechanical engineering. Existing courses are redesigned, transformed into multimedia format and made accessible over the internet. In order to prepare students for working conditions similar to engineering cooperation of international companies, the concept offers project work in virtual teams, geographically distributed among the partner universities. For example, an engineering design project is realised by a virtual team of five local teams at each of the partner universities. The concept offers a combination of traditional team working exercise in engineering design with internet based collaboration techniques. The students experience teamwork with local peers as well as in virtual teams with students from other universities. The tasks are shared and the students develop the product using technologies like internet-based collaboration and communication.
Within a business environment, where the fast and reliable access to knowledge is a key success factor, an efficient handling of the organizational knowledge is crucial. Therefore the need for methods and techniques, which allow to structure and maintain complex knowledge bases according to the requirements emerging from the daily work have a high priority. This article provides a business process oriented approach to structure organizational knowledge and information bases. The approach was developed within applied research in the industrial, service and administrative sector. Following this approach, three different types of knowledge structures and their visualization have been developed by the Fraunhofer IPK and are currently applied and tested in organizations. Beside the approach itself, these three types of knowledge structure and the cases of application shall be introduced here.
Contemporary knowledge management activities in an enterprise suffer from the discrepancy between the global benefit for the organization and the personal benefit for the individual knowledge worker. To ameliorate this divergence we investigate an evolutionary approach which automatically integrates the structures of individual knowledge workspaces into comprehensive organizational knowledge structures. To enable the individual user to keep an overview over both the personal information space and the various views and structures in the organization, we present a concept for dynamically-configured visualization of multi-layered concept spaces and information structures. This approach will be realized in the newly-started research project EPOS.
Creating online communities involves much more than creating software. Software houses online community activities but social interactions also depend on who is involved, what their goals are, personalities and policies. By paying attention to these sociability issues, community developers, managers and leaders can influence how a community develops. For instance, they can facilitate policies that engender sound social norms and increase social capital. This paper identifies some of the ingredients for social capital development in Communities of Practice (COP) and outlines the components of a a framework for future research.
This paper describes our vision for the near future in digital content analysis as it relates to the creation, verification, and presentation of knowledge. We focus on how visualization enables humans to make discoveries and gain knowledge. Visualization, in this context, is not just the picture representing the data but also a two-way interaction between humans and their information resources for the purposes of knowledge discovery, verification, and the sharing of knowledge with others. We present visual interaction and analysis examples to demonstrate how one current visualization tool analyzes large, diverse collections of text. This is followed by lessons learned and the presentation of a core concept for a new human information discourse.
“New” essential resources and success factors keep being invested and provide fertile grounds, not only in the consultancy industry, for ever more glossy brochures to create success. The production factor of knowledge is currently at the focus of many theories and numerous publications. It remains to be seen whether we are seeing real innovations. Knowledge has always been prerequisite to creating products or services, an essential input, a “silent production factor”.
The modern, complex environment has also made products and processes more complex and extensive. The ability to adapt to changing conditions increasingly determines success or failure. All aspects of enterprises are affected, even the “smallest units”, the human element. In this context, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to share knowledge with colleagues. Knowledge transfer is basically characterised by a question-and-answer principle. The focus is on the incalculable human factor. This causes more or less distinct transfer barriers.
Prejudices, fear of criticism, lack of confidence, constant time pressures and other factors are some barriers to transfer caused by the individual. Besides organisations may create barriers, too, through rigid hierarchies, red tape, and outdated procedures.
By means of the barrier matrix and the barrier cube we have presented eight different constellations from the scientist’s view. At a very theoretical level we have also touched briefly on how to solve these problems. Knowledge management does not yet seem to attach enough importance to the issue of communication, particularly to internal communication. In addition to individual and organisational transfer barriers, communication media can also contribute to problems and barriers in knowledge transfer.
Knowledge management systems provide three basic services: information capture, storage and organization, and access. This paper argues that collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) provide features that make them uniquely suited as an integral part of information capture. After introducing CVEs, we present our work in this area and outline our future plans.