The modular logistic transport of goods on streets, railroads, inland water and sea is a complex and versatile process. It requires exact knowledge of geographic information, available logistical service providers and communication channels. This application paper describes IMOTRIS, an automated Intermodal Transport Routing Information System which is developed as a state-aided collaborative project that benefits from practical experience by contributions from different ports and transport service providers. We present a novel approach which combines service-oriented multi-modal route planning with semantic web technologies for the selection and ranking of transport and turnover services to create suitable and optimized complex logistic service chains. We utilize committed semantic descriptions of logistic services and their relationships with regard to the application context.
Students and workers mobility in the European scenario represents today a big challenge. During the last years, several initiatives have been carried out to deal with the above picture, being the European Quali cation Framework (EQF), a common architecture for describing quali cations, one of the most signi cant. In parallel, several research activities were established with the aim of exploiting semantic technologies for quali cation comparison in the context of human resources acquisition. In this paper, the EQF speci cations are applied in a practical scenario to develop a ranking algorithm allowing for quali cation comparison on the basis of knowledge, skill and competence concepts, potentially aimed at supporting European employers during the recruitment phases.
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.
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.
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.
The Web 2.0 philosophy has brought new ways of using the web as a content repository and a sharing platform. Non-computer skilled people can now publish their own text, images, videos and/or sounds and take part in communities created around topics they like. It has also brought an opportunity to propose resources to a potentially huge audience. Indeed, a promotional video posted on YouTube can be watched by millions of users. That is why we wanted to know if it was possible to take advantage of this possibility to recruit testers for our music learning tool: our development is user centred, so it is important for us to have it evaluated by lots of testers. Until now, they were recruited in a geographically limited area, i.e Réunion Island. Therefore, we have set up an experiment called “E-guitar Sonar Edition” to gather information about this recruiting opportunity. The idea is thus to design a free downloadable version of our system (originally, it was a DVD), put it on a dedicated web site and have it promoted thanks to video sequences posted on YouTube and Dailymotion, the two majors video Web 2.0 sharing sites, the most appropriate services. This article presents the conditions and the process used. It also deals with the assessment part, the way we gather feedback and finally shows the firsts results. The experiment itself has no limit in time, so it is still currently running.
This paper presents findings from the development process of a general innovation framework for an ongoing Nordic R&D project on e-business and media. It focuses on the current state of the Danish news media sector and the conclusions we can draw from the “Web 2.0 activity” of the Danish newspapers. The paper concludes that the Web 2.0 offers the opportunity for fundamental re-thinking of the business models of the news media sector and for developing a new framework for business modelling for this sector.
Nowadays, on the basis of a common standard for metadata representation and interchange mechanism in data warehouse environments, Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM) – based ETL processes still has to face significant challenges in semantically and systematically integrating heterogeneous sources to data warehouse. In this context, we focus on proposing an ontology-based ETL framework for covering schema integration as well as semantic integration. In our approach, beside the schema-based semantics in CWM-compliant metamodels, semantic interoperability in ETL processes can be improved by means of an ontology-based foundation to better representation, and management of the underlying domain semantics. Furthermore, within the scope of this paper, a set of CWM-based modelling constructs driven by ontology for the definition of metadata required for ETL processes is defined, facilitating the extraction, transformation and loading of useful data from distributed and heterogeneous sources. Thus, the role of interconnecting CWM and semantic technologies in populating data warehousing systems with quality data and providing data warehouse an integrated and reconciled view of data is highlighted.
The Web 2.0 philosophy has brought new ways of using the web as a content repository and a sharing platform. Non-computer skilled people can now publish their own text, images, videos and/or sounds and take part in communities created around topics they like. Our idea is thus to use this new communication mechanism to assist skill learning. Skill is indeed a difficult knowledge to learn on a text form as it is hard to describe movements, gestures or procedures in this way: sometime, a picture or a video is better than a thousand of words.
As a popular field of experience, we have focused our attention on music learning, and more particularly on guitar pieces learning. Music is very representative of skill learning, it is both a physical and an intellectual activity. The “Gloss2U” service we describe in this article takes into account the specificities of this learning process, especially as events are time-related.
To achieve this, we rely on new equipment conditions that are nowadays gathered. Userfriendly multimedia tools opened new horizons and broadband networks (ADSL, cable, …) are becoming more and more common. Almost everybody is a potential content producer with just a webcam or a cell phone. Our system is therefore audio and video based and users interact with each others by submitting contributions, called glosses, in the context of the piece they are learning. A dialogue starts between student users (learners) and experimented ones (professors), to discuss encountered problems and the way to solve them. The other strength of this system is that it can act as a knowledge repository for forthcoming practitioners.
There are many technologies calling themselves knowledge management systems in the market but most of them deal only with information management. The main difference between them is that knowledge management systems are oriented into people and participated in tacit knowledge capturing. The paper describes set of information technologies which could take part in all process of knowledge management and especially in collecting tacit knowledge.
Software documentation is often a neglected aspect of software development although high quality end user documentation is an important competitive instrument. The process of creating such documentation is knowledge-intensive. In this contribution an end user documentation refers to a collection of knowledge which is compiled by various distinct knowledge sources within a company. To meet the highly specialised needs of such documentation a wiki is implemented. The background, the implementation procedure, and the characteristics of a corporate wiki are introduced.
One of the crucial steps in new service development is the creation of a service concept: a description of a future service system in terms of its objects, their attributes, and possible values for these attributes. Our knowledge framework encompasses a five-level taxonomy of service objects: major class, main class, minor class, attribute and value. We apply this taxonomy to the conceptual design of a new service, drawing upon model-based reasoning and case-based reasoning.
Distributed Knowledge Management Systems (DKMS) are often faced to heterogeneous environments associated with the absence of shared vocabularies. DKMSs realise Knowledge Flows between autonomous Knowledge Nodes as parts of social networks. Schwotzer models the KNs’ individual policies for input relevance and output strategy as Knowledge Ports. Topic Map Technologies are well suited for the semantic integration of distributed, heterogeneous knowledge. But current implementations base on pure naming approaches to Subject Identity in connection with the use of shared vocabularies. Maicher’s SIM Approach helps to use Topic Map Technologies for the semantic integration of distributed, heterogeneous knowledge in the absence of shared vocabularies. To detect Subject similarity it exploits the Topics’ usage in the current context. Our contribution is the liaison of the Knowledge Port Approach and the SIM Approach. This leads to DKMSs which significantly better deal with the absence of shared vocabularies.
Strategy development is a rational decision making process, carried out by a group of managers aiming to match the organization’s resources to the opportunities arising from its competitive environment. We argue that, in order to develop successful strategic plans, contemporary business organizations should exploit features from diverse disciplines to attain a synthesis of the strategists’ highly specialized state-of-the-art knowledge. In this paper, we present a collaborative framework where Decision Support Systems and Knowledge Management Systems features are integrated for the appropriate handling of strategic management issues. Based on a well-defined ontology model that interweaves concepts from the Knowledge Management, Argumentation Theory, Decision Making and Multicriteria Decision Aid disciplines, our framework enables strategists to collaborate and accomplish a common understanding of different user perspectives. Furthermore, it assists them in reaching a decision by exploiting the organization’s knowledge resources.
This paper discusses the information technologies that support the knowledge management processes in enterprises. Knowledge processes are differentiated from operational business processes and their role in enterprise management is identified. Commercial software tools are surveyed based on their roles in the process of creating, sharing and using knowledge. The role of knowledge management systems in customer processes in modern organizations is discussed.
In many areas of the medical domain, the decision process i.e. reasoning, involving health care professionals is distributed, cooperative and complex. Computer based decision support systems has usually been focusing on the outcome of the decision making and treated it as a single task. In this paper a framework for a Clinical Reasoning Knowledge Warehouse (CRKW) is presented, intended to support the reasoning process, by providing the decision participants with an analysis platform that captures and enhances information and knowledge. The CRKW mixes theories and models from Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Management Systems and Business Intelligence to make context sensitive, patient case specific analysis and knowledge management. The knowledge base consists of patient health records, reasoning process information and clinical guidelines. Patient specific information and knowledge is continually enhanced by adding results of analysis. Context sensitive analysis is done by retrieving similar patient cases and guidelines from the knowledge base in a case based fashion.
In our work a new approach, the Distributed Knowledge Management (DKM) approach, is used and organizations are seen as constellations of communities, which “own” local knowledge and exchange it through meaning negotiation coordination processes. In order to reify communities within a DKM system, the concept of Knowledge Node (KN) is used and then applied in a case study: a complex Italian national firm, the Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A. All communities of practices are unveiled and reified as KNs within a high level architecture of a DKM system. In this paper it is argued that, even if knowledge has to be organized and made useful to the whole organization, there are types of knowledge that must be managed in an autonomous way, and the DKM approach is a good system which to deal with coordination/ negotiation processes.