Communication and sharing of knowledge are important challenges for virtual organizations (VO) in the globalized economy. There are various tools available to virtually reduce geographical distances and to support collaboration. Also for the management of knowledge appropriate solutions are available. But VOs typically have limited time to setup the entire IT-nfrastructure for their collaboration. Therefore the trend to buy ready-to-use products exists. This paper characterizes requests of VOs for SaaS products, proposes functionalities to support team work and describes challenges with their solutions in the cloud.
In this paper, we conceptualize visual representations (e.g., sketches, CAD drawings, and prototypes) as „artifacts of knowing‟ serving the purposes to share, transform, and symbolize organizational knowledge. First, we propose a comprehensive definition of visual representations by integrating insights from the literature domains of knowledge management and organizational culture. Building on the reviewed literature, we then develop a conceptual framework that articulates the visualization process in terms of a cyclical pathway between the formats (e.g., from sketches to prototypes) and the functions (e.g., from knowledge sharing to knowledge symbolization) of visual representations. After suggesting managerial recommendations for the use of visual representations in organizational knowledge management, we conclude our paper by pointing out the limitations of the current literature, and by suggesting directions for future research on visual knowledge management.
In this paper, we review the benefits of sketching or ad-hoc, collaborative hand drawings for knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, and knowledge documentation. We have conducted a comprehensive literature review in the fields of design, psychology, and computer science that documents the multiple advantages of sketch-based approaches for managing knowledge in organizations, especially on the team-level. We argue for the complementary use of this „low-tech knowledge management‟ approach with existing digital infrastructures and tools. The article concludes with a set of propositions for practitioners regarding the use of sketching in different knowledge management contexts and with implications for future research in this area.
Although the concept of knowledge work has been around for fifty years and many interventions have been made in order to support this type of work, information is scarce on the effects of such interventions. This paper presents the results of a multiple-case study consisting of seven cases related to six European organisations and one network of organisations on the topics performance, measures and plans concerning knowledge maturing. The paper lays out the design of the empirical study, the methods used, the results we gained and the interpretation that we performed on the basis of the results. We collected a number of reasons why organisations deem themselves as outperforming others with respect to knowledge maturing, measures that have proven successful when being employed in a certain constellation or are planned by the organisations. Out of those, we were able to elicit levers and clearly describe the effects those levers are per-ceived to create with respect to general handling of knowledge and their effects on knowledge maturing.
Software engineering projects result in experiences that are valuable for continuous improvement. Experience and Knowl-edge Management (EKM) deals with the proper presenta-tion, engineering, and reuse of experiences, e.g. training newproject members or supporting future projects. In globally distributed projects proper EKM is even more important: Communication between project partners is more difficult than in co-located projects and may impair the awareness of knowledge residing at a project partner’s location. Project members might hesitate to share experience because of security considerations. We propose a hierarchical experience base with rights management aiming to positively influence their willingness to share. Our concept includes special sup-port for experience engineers to re ne local experiences into best practices in globally distributed software projects. In this paper we show how our approach can rise awareness of existing experiences by presenting relevant experiences according to roles. We also argue, how this improves the willingness to share experiences in a distributed environment.
Industrial challenges in the automotive industry are more and more focused around the optimization of the development process which requires new integrated instruments of communication and collaboration. To face challenges of business communication and collaboration, the industrial multi-firm research project “FuturePLM” applies a series of methodologies in industrial and scientific environments. First, relevant topics were elaborated within an expert panel followed by qualitative interviews to gather the industrial as-is situation of product development. Afterwards, scenario planning was applied to create possible pictures of product development in the future. The key is seen in the analysis of the gap between the as-is situation and possible future scenarios. Some of these gaps include aspects such as the proposition to integrate Web 2.0 technologies in the daily business environment of product development (social networking, micro blogging, etc.), as well as the analysis of other upcoming topics with high relevance (e.g. complexity management, representation of data or implementation strategies). However, the major focus is the consideration of human behaviors. The goal is the identification of opportunities and threats, as well as the development of concepts and solution approaches to establish a sustainable strategy for future-oriented product development and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM).
In this paper we consider OntoBox, an implementation of a simple de-scription logic called the oo-projection, as a persistent knowledge storage. OntoBox is a mediator between the knowledge management systems and conventional information techniques (like OOP languages and data bases). The abstract interface of OntoBox and its basic implementation (OntoBox Storage) are considered. Some implementation issues are discussed, and the potential of the approach is overviewed.
Although most enterprises nowadays increasingly employ digital informa-tion management in all areas, there are still many organisations – e.g. in the Public Sector – where much of formal and informal information is documented on paper only. This work lays out the concept of a set of digital metaphors for entities in the “paper world” and argues that they will ease the adoption and acceptance of digital informa-tion and knowledge management solutions.
We furthermore describe how the metaphors are linked with each other. We place a special focus on the relationship between informal, unstructured information and formally structured one, as well as on collaboration and knowledge sharing enabled by the metaphors. These aspects have been combined into a prototype that is described and illustrated in some detail
An industrialisation of knowledge intensive work can be observed when analysing the transformation of the information society. This means that knowledge work reached a maturity that it can be expressed in form of processes, semantics or rules. When applying a business process oriented view – where knowledge is required to perform certain tasks – such mechanism can be used to develop a so-called knowledge conveyer belt, where knowledge is provided to the knowledge worker in a similar way like material is provided on a production belt. This paper introduces a knowledge conveyer belt as a realisation framework for process-oriented knowledge provision. This approach enables a business and knowledge alignment modelling mechanisms that keeps the “human in the loop”. Samples of projects are mentioned to show the applicability of this knowledge conveyer belt approach.
One of the principles of managing structured knowledge of an application domain is to exploit the notion of an ontology. Generalization of knowledge entities using formal semantic metadata enables classi cation and structuring of knowledge for better metadata management. Classi cation serves to form conceptual hierarchy of ontologies to reflect relationships among entities in the domain semantically while structuring helps to position vertical domain generalizations in appropriate relation-ships horizontally. We present a novel approach for conceptualization of enterprise application information in such a hierarchy to structure knowledge in abstract and domain speci c ontologies in RDFS forming reusable knowledge bases. We overcome conceptualization complexities in ligree enterprise information models by focusing on essential aspects of data types and their semantics to align relationship for business objects, enterprise data types and semantic entities with pragmatic consideration on a lightweigt semantic information model to maximize flexibility and inferential efficiency service query answering as well as reuse of structured knowledge artifacts.
knowCube®, a novel multi criteria decision making tool, is introduced. Its user-friendly interface assists “intuitive surfing through decision spaces” by means which are also familiar to non-experts. Causes and effects of alternatives may be examined from different points of view, and several types of criteria – like quantitative or qualitative, dependent or independent, hard or soft, and all mixed together – can be handled at the same time. The tool’s broad applicability is illustrated by some application examples from absolutely different fields: Mixed Sandwiches of various materials are investigated in manufacturing, ideal Foams are produced due to optimal parameter settings, and personalized Drugs could be designed by balancing conflicting effects.
Based on many analyses at enterprises over the past years we see that the economy nowadays asks for efficient and sustainable solutions in knowledge management (KM). Thus, we propose to follow the principle of value orientation also in managing knowledge regarding that there are different types of business processes with different demand for KM. To confirm this fact and to deduce adequate procedures, we conducted a case study at a logistics service provider introducing the innovative method of knowledge-based value stream mapping.
The user experience of any software or website consists of elements from the conceptual to the concrete level. These elements of user experience assist in the design and development of user interfaces. On the other hand, Ontologies provide a framework for computable representation of user interface elements and underlying data. This paper discusses strategies of introducing ontologies at different user interface layers adapted from user experience elements. These layers range from abstract levels (e.g. User needs/Application Objectives) to concrete levels (e.g. Application User Interface) in term of data representation. The proposed ontological framework enables device independent, semi-automated GUI construction which we will demonstrate at a personal information management example.
Siemens is well known for ambitious efforts in knowledge management, providing a series of innovative tools and applications within the intranet. References@BT is such a web-based application aimed to support globally sharing knowledge, experiences and best-practices within the Building Technologies Division. As a reaction to the demand of employees, a new microblogging service, tightly integrated into References@BT, was implemented in March 2009. In this paper, we comprehensively describe motivation, experiences and advantages for the organization in providing an internal microblogging application. Because of the tight inte-gration, we also outline general facts of the knowledge management application.
This paper looks at the convergence of knowledge management and Enterprise 2.0 and describes the possibilities for an overarching exchange and transfer of knowledge in Enterprise 2.0. This will be underlined by the presentation of the concrete example of T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH (MMS), which describes the establishment of a new portfolio element using a community approach “IG eHealth”. This is typified by the decentralised development of common ideas, collaboration and the assistance available to performing responsibilities as provided by Enterprise 2.0 tools. Regarding the collaboration of knowledge workers as the basis, a regulatory framework will be developed for knowledge management to serve as a template for the systemisation and definition of specific Enterprise 2.0 activities. The paper will conclude by stating enabling factors and supporting Enterprise 2.0 activities, which will facilitate the establishment of a expert knowledge management system for the optimisation of knowledge transfer.
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.
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!.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Unforeseen Experiences from a Balanced Scorecard Project in the Healthcare Sector
In the context of the Balanced Scorecard development in the Upper Austrian Gesundheits- und Spitals AG (gespag) the methodology of strategy maps was applied in order to build a base for the definition of relevant areas of strategic measures. When applying the methodology it turned out that it is very supportive also from the knowledge management perspective (especially 2nd Generation KM), e.g. for the explication of knowledge, cognitive mapping, the creation of a common-mindset (organisational learning), the storage of information and individual learning about strategy and systemic thinking. Furthermore, it allows organisational knowledge integration meaning that people can integrate both the explicated knowledge in their system or their work, and the appropriate “sense” of the further information provided. The intention of the article is to show that methods of strategic management, and possibly from many other fields, can also be very beneficial in a knowledge management context.
This paper proposes a conceptual definition that can used as a starting point to contextualize knowledge initiatives in international organizations and other types of non-profit organizations interested in knowledge management.
Organizational leaders, knowledge 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 at eight different international organizations, 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 have been conducted, with organizational leaders, knowledge managers, IT managers and human resources managers.
The grounded theory methodology as described by Strauss and Corbin [Strauss and Corbin, 1990, Strauss and Corbin, 1994], using interviews and document studies for data collection, combined with findings from literature, helped identify processes involved in managing knowledge in international organizations.
The knowledge maturing model views learning activities as embedded into, interwoven with, and even indistinguishable from everyday work processes. Learning is understood as an inherently social and collaborative activity. The Knowledge Maturing Process Model structures this process into five phases: expressing ideas, distributing in communities, formalizing, ad-hoc learning and standardization. It is applicable not only for content but also to process knowledge and semantics. In the MATURE IP two toolsets will be develop that support the maturing process: a personal learning environment and an organisation learning environment integrating the levels of individuals, communities and organisation. The development is guided by the SER theory of seeding, evolutionary growth and reseeding and is based on generally applicable maturing services.
In today’s information environments, tagging is widely used to provide informationabout arbitrary types of digital resources. This information is created by end users with different motivations and for different kinds of purposes. When aiming to support users in the tagging process, these differences play an important role. This paper discusses several approaches to generate tag recommendations, and a prototypical recommender system for the social resource sharing platform ALOE will be presented.
This interactive system allows users to control the generation of the recommendations by selecting the sources to be used as well as their impact. The component was introduced at DFKI, and a first evaluation showed that the recommender component was considered as helpful by a majority of users.
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.
The need for Knowledge Management (KM) in Human Services is growing. New “Social Software”-solutions which came along with the so-called “Web 2.0” enable advanced possibilities of implementing KM-strategies in smaller agencies in the domain of Social Work. In the field of of human service-oriented knowledge sharing one case out of three projects showing the use of a wiki will be presented. The project deal with the introduction of a wiki in the area of Case Management in a job center.
Project organizations make particular demands on the management of knowledge both within projects and across projects. In this contribution we present a method kit for the improvement of knowledge management in a project organization in the German Federal Armed Forces. The kit was developed in an interdisciplinary cooperation with the Bundeswehr University Munich. The project team approached two goals: The method kit firstly should serve as an instrument for a target-oriented identification and for removing project specific knowledge barriers. Secondly, the kit should create awareness for measures to further support knowledge work. We describe the basic elements of the method kit and present a process model for its application.
Developing successful knowledge management (KM) processes is extremely difficult. In general, a large number of all KM projects end unsuccessfully. The aim of this paper is to summarize and study the attempts to take advantage of Lessons Learned in the Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF), focusing on international missions. Relevant reports, articles and literature have been studied. With the purpose of understanding the reasons for failure and the failure factors in SwAF’s attempts at KM, Chua and Lams’ model for unsuccessful KM implementation has been applied to four cases from the organization. The results show that SwAF are aware of the importance of knowledge and have attempted to implement KM on several occasions. In most cases, however, the KM projects do not achieve widespread use and eventually end unsuccessfully. Furthermore, many of the KM tools that have been developed are no longer in use. The Swedish Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Demining Centre (SWEDEC) and the Swedish Air Force are notable exceptions.
Due to increasing professionalization and specialization in the development of computer and video games new challenges regarding the support of knowledgeintensive activities emerge. This paper aims at sensitizing and systematizing the needs and potentials for continuous integration of knowledge management into game development. It describes the interplay of development activities and involved parties with the knowledge creation process and provides insight into a tool-based approach that aims to support knowledge management in game development on three distinct levels.
In this paper, we analyze the relation of private and public information spaces in organizations and its implication for organizational knowledge management. By private information spaces, we mean all (electronic) information, which is only accessible by a single person in an organization (e.g. local files or personal E-Mails). The organizational information space in turn, consists of all electronic information, which can be accessed by all or most members of an organization. Based on this distinction, we develop a notion of information gaps between the organizational and the individual worker’s information space. We derive four basic situations and discuss the implications for organizational knowledge management in each one. We support our claims by describing results from initial evaluation studies.
Despite intensive research within the field of knowledge management and its components, the issue of knowledge valuation and its organisational integration presents a big challenge. Existing research papers about knowledge valuation have remained on very abstract levels and therefore cannot be very easily adapted to the needs of a specific company. Often only scarce information is provided for specific practical implementation. This interferes considerably with the application of existing methods of knowledge valuation. In addition, support by information technology seems only seldom to be found nowadays, which also complicates the application of existing methods in organisations. The aim of this research paper is to compare selected established approaches of knowledge valuation on the basis of certain criteria. Furthermore, an analysis and identification of possibilities for improvement are given.
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.
Many organizations are in front of most competitive economic environments, where, in order to survive, they must reduce costs all the time and adopt the most intelligent business strategy. We decided to design an expert system for choosing the most adequate accountancy program for an enterprise and that will serve as an effective tool for knowledge management. The purpose of this paper is to highlight that an Expert System is an innovative tool for managing knowledge in any domain.
Knowledge Management is meanwhile generally recognized as a discipline established in many organisations and no longer needs a special justification. It is certainly not unrestrictedly positively seen and even some of its supporters saw a hype in the development of the last few years, which is fading and is being replaced by a realist view of what is feasible. In the attempt to gain a proof of success, one bumps into further difficulties since the effects of KM activities are often not easily or explicitly measurable. It is not clear if this would not have developed as positively when not measures would have been taken for the development of knowledge management. The goal of this paper is the attempt of a comprehensive explanation of a new theme which is incorporated in Tacit Knowledge Management (TKM), as well as a proposal for the integration of TKM in the traditional understanding of knowledge management.
Service oriented architectures (SOAs) are a new paradigm in IT-management. This paper presents an SOA-implementation in the intranet portal of a 520-employee research institute, which was launched to accompany parallel knowledge-management (KM) activities. Furthermore it explains the benefits of an SOA-based IT-landscape for KM-activities.
This paper suggests a powerful yet so far not used way to assist knowledge workers: while they are working on a problem, a system in the background is continuously checking to determine if similar or helpful material has not been published before, elsewhere. The technique described aims to reduce effort and time required to search relevant data on the World Wide Web by moving from a “pull” paradigm, where the user has to become active, to a “push” paradigm, where the user is notified if something relevant is found. We claim that the approach facilitates work by providing context aware passive web search, result analysis, extraction and organization of information according to the tasks at hand. Instead of conventional information retrieval enhancements we suggest a model where relevant information automatically moves into the attention field of the knowledge worker.
Currently, social bookmarking systems provide intuitive support for browsing locally their content. A global view is usually presented by the tag cloud of the system, but it does not allow a conceptual drill-down, e. g., along a conceptual hierarchy. In this paper, we present a clustering approach for computing such a conceptual hierarchy for a given folksonomy. The hierarchy is complemented with ranked lists of users and resources most related to each cluster. The rankings are computed using our FolkRank algorithm. We have evaluated our approach on large scale data from the del.icio.us bookmarking system.
The Palette project dedicated to lerning in Communities of Practice (CoPs) aims to offer several services for communities of practice, in particular Knowledge Management (KM) services based on an ontology dedicated to CoPs, the so-called O’CoP. Built from information sources about the Palette CoPs, O’CoP aims both at modelling the members of the CoP and at annotating the CoP’s knowledge resources. The paper describes the structure of O’CoP, its main concepts and relations, and it reports some lessons learnt from the cooperative community building of this ontology.
Explanations of modeling errors in ontologies are of crucial importance both when creating and maintaining the ontology. This work presents two novel incremental methods for error explanations in semantic web ontologies and shows that they have significantly better performance than the state of the art black-box techniques. Both promising techniques together with our implementation of a tableau reasoner for an important OWL-DL subset SHIN are used in our semantic annotation tool prototype to explain modeling errors.
Standard based management systems (as ISO9001 quality, ISO14001 environmental, ISO27001 information security, ISO 22000 hygiene management systems and others) are widely implemented and based on common principles: objectives and strategies, business processes, resource management and continuously optimization. These systems must also be documented, communicated, implemented and continuously improved. Therefore they represent an optimal basis for an integrated learning organization, if the requirements of management systems are completely implemented. This documentation contains the explicit organizational knowledge, but it is almost felt as additional workload with a little or no advantage and it is not totally corresponding with the lived processes. Therefore it is hardly used as reference book for workplace need-oriented process integrated learning to improve the organization. Based on this situation we prepared the system documentation according to media-pedagogical and didactical principles and published it on organizational learning and knowledge system based on constructivist theory. In the case study the documentation support a confidence-based, open and fault-tolerant corporate and learning culture by promoting a need-oriented workplace process integrated learning, shorter initial training periods for new collaborators and a continuous optimization of the organization for securing a sustainable success for the organization.
All organizations need knowledge, and international organizations are no different. Intellectual capital in international organizations needs to be nurtured to optimize their performance; and understanding the challenges of managing knowledge, and aligning technology solutions are crucial to achieve that end. This paper explores the knowledge in international organizations and the dynamic interactions between stakeholders. It also proposes tools to classify the various knowledge products and to contextualize knowledge initiatives in international organizations and other types of non-profit organizations interested in knowledge management. Organizational leaders, knowledge 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 at eight different international organizations, 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 30 interviews were conducted, with organizational leaders, knowledge managers, IT managers and human resources managers. Emphasis was on UNIDO and IAEA, as these two had developed independent knowledge management programs.
The grounded theory methodology as described by Strauss and Corbin [Strauss and Corbin, 1990, Strauss and Corbin, 1994], using interviews and document studies for data collection, combined with findings from literature, helped identify processes involved in managing knowledge in international organizations. The KM processes discovered suggests that managing knowledge in international organizations is a complex cyclical activity that leads
an international organization to become more knowledge focused.
In today’s digital economy, knowledge manegment is critical to the success of many organizations. This paper is based on a research which examined the practices of knowledge management in Turkish large companies. The research sample was 214 Turkish organizations. Data were obtained by questionnaires and analyzed by SPSS. The main findings revealed that the majority of respondents believed that their knowledge management system was very important to the development of their organizations, and that the most important sources of ideas come from customers. The most important method used by Turkish organizations to facilitate the sharing of knowledge between employees was internet. This research produces some useful insights and leaving a number of issues for future research.
The ancient Chinese kind of thinking, as best known from TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) is very different from the modern western approach of scientific medicine. But there is powerful knowledge in both systems and the knowledge is complementary. It is obvious that our methods and techniques of knowledge management do not support the foreign kind of thinking. Though many of our trends have striking similarity to this ancient Chinese behaviour. Holistic approaches, synthesis versus analysis, networking, social web, empathy, mirror neurons, memetics, graphical versus textual communication. Many of the things we cannot understand are complex systems and for these systems our analytic behaviour in thinking does not seem to work. The straight rule of cause and effect does not work for complex systems, so our western philosophy based on causality fails. Our attempt in managing knowledge using analytical models based on causality will probably fail too. To break up information into sentences of words and looking for grammar (taxonomy), syntax and relations (ontology) cannot work. Because it is the wrong way of asking questions compared to the ancient Chinese philosophy. So what could be a useful approach in managing complex systems like knowledge in organisations from the ancient Chinese point of view?
Leading researchers in the fields of business strategy, organizational theory, institutional economics and economic development routinely emphasize the growth of the knowledge economy and by implication, there is a vital need for organizations to manage, share and leverage knowledge assets. Yet, it has been increasing clear from previous research that the field of knowledge management (KM) has not in general met its goals of transforming information sharing and collaborations in organisations. Lucier and Torsilera [97] claim that 84 percent of KM programs fail to have any real impact. Despite these problems, KM addresses a clearly perceived need for innovation, whether expressed in terms of the knowledge economy, knowledge workers, or intellectual capital management. This paper points to some gaps in the current body of knowledge about KM, and suggests areas of investigation that build on its strength. We propose a simple framework for what we term Knowledge Fusion to provide rigor and relevance to KM.
The evolution of our society to the knowledge based society has raised new challenges for most of the scientific domains that exist. The higher importance given to knowledge extraction instead of getting just information (i.e. data included in a context) hast led to the development of several intelligent techniques for knowledge discovery. This paper shows some examples of using the techniques of case-based reasoning and data-mining for knowledge discovery in the knowledge management system of an university. We have taken as example, the educational domain with the particular case of universities as they represent good examples of organizations that acquire, generate, store and use knowledge for various purposes, teaching, learning and research.
The main idea of this paper is the combination of the following two declarations: (1) There is a variety of different models, tools and techniques in the area of knowledge management, but there is no framework for finding the right tool in combination of the strategic alignment of the company and the technical/cultural infrastructure. (2) A lot of research in the field of knowledge management is done for large companies or international concerns. A very interesting and important kind of business is neglected: the small and medium-sized enterprises. This paper shows a model for describing the flexible process finding the right tools and techniques with the adequate focus on IT support for a SME to efficient implement knowledge management cost-efficient.
Within a series of practical projects to introduce knowledge management systems in small or medium-sized enterprises (SME), we realized the need to reconsider current guidelines such as the European Guide to good Practice in Knowledge Management. Our basic assumptions leading to this reconsideration are firstly that the introduction of knowledge management is a wicked problem, secondly that a strong relationship to the employees’ actual work process has to be established as well as a dense integration of technical and organizational structures, thirdly that it needs at least a series of workshops to develop an understanding of the usage of KM in the workplace, and finally that the introduction is more often triggered by opportunities than by strategic planning. On this basis, we re-orientate the phases of introducing knowledge management.
This paper describes our work on developing an ontology-based software infrastructure for retaining and maintaining theoretical Knowledge Management (KM) Maturity Models (ONTOKNOM) by using a KM Maturity Model Ontology. Moreover ONTOKNOM provides technical means for designing a web-based system that supports the form-based selfevaluation of an organization with regard to its current maturity level, as well as for providing concrete organizational recommendations and measures in order to achieve a higher one. A description of including the existing KPQM model into the system is also provided.
Even though knowledge management has been around for more than a decade, so far concrete instruments that can be systematically deployed are still rare. This paper presents an optimization solution targeted at flexible management of office space considering knowledge management criteria in order to enhance knowledge work productivity. The paper presents the Flexible Office conceptual model and optimization solution and discusses the theoretical foundation, assumptions and reasoning. A corresponding prototype was field-tested, successfully introduced, evaluated with the help of a series of interviews with users and improved according to their requirements. The paper also reflects on the organisational impact and lessons learned from field test and practical experience.
The knowledge is defined as combination and organization of data and information in given context and Knowledge Management (KM) provides capturing, storing and reusing of knowledge objects. In Web 2.0 world the knowledge is represented in form of microcontent object and KM 2.0 proposes creation, sharing and leveraging the microknowledge in a collaborative way. The microknowledge in Web 2.0 network can be controlled through designing the instructional strategies that will provide user learning paths and activities and that will give possibilities for sharing of those same learning activities and microknowledge with others. The present paper is aimed to reflect of the research needs and the new challenges in the mentioned above three areas: KM, Web 2.0 technologies and Learning Design (LD). It is focused on designing of personalized learning using IMS LD elements. The paper analyzes the possibilities of applying Web 2.0 technologies for defining a broaden set of activities and creating the rich environments with microknowledge objects and web services in one successful scenario.
Distributed cooperative contexts provide a challenge for successful Knowledge Management. Users in different places around the globe need to interact with one another in goal-oriented projects. In classical Computer Supported Cooperative Work applications this interactive component is often neglected. In contrast Web 2.0 offers a strong author-recipient interaction that may be translated successfully into cooperative work contexts. An integrated approach based on virtual knowledge spaces using semantic positioning to communicate meaning efficiently between project members enhanced with Web 2.0 functionality is introduced in this paper.
This paper discusses the requirements of a framework for sharing digital resources and metadata to meet the needs of open, flexible Knowledge Management solutions. The changing nature of the Web and its users as observed in recent years clearly establishes the need for new approaches and technologies to fully exploit the potential for working with existing digital resources. Formal metadata about the resources can be combined with information created in lightweight and user-centric approachesin order to significantly enhance resource descriptions and enable more efficient access to existing knowledge. The ALOE system, currently in development at DFKI, is one such solution and it is used here as the basis for a sample realization of an appropriate framework.
Process management is an important task in many companies. However, most of the literature on process management focuses on aspects like execution and monitoring and does neither deal with knowledge management support for the maintenance and contextualization of process models nor with the integration of such tasks into work procedures and corresponding tools. An effective knowledge management for business processes needs meta-data describing not only the processes but also their parts and details. This paper proposes a knowledge infrastructure for process modelling, usage and maintenance, which is based on a social tagging approach derived from popular social bookmarking tools. The concept of a tag-based prototype is described, which enables knowledge management support for complex sets of processes.
When facing partial evidence on how architectural objects evolved through time (often due to uncompleted information), it is important to provide the researcher with tools for a cross-examination of cases that may help him better delineate possible values for lacking information. In the case of architecture, we deal with data that can be attached to a given location (distribution in time and space) and to a given generic typology. This opens an opportunity to use pseudo cartographic representations in order to visually distribute objects that share a common typology. Unlike with geographical maps, we should however include visual signs that tell the user about the architectural composition of each object in the data set, as well as about its level of documentation. In this paper we try to demonstrate, using a data set concerning antique theatres, that visual comparative evaluations of the data can provide a major
methodological breakthrough for cross-examination of information on architectural objects.
The paper outlines how attention metadata enables a tight integration between organisational knowledge stores and human resource management on the one hand and learning management system in corporate contexts on the other hand. The approach relies on an extension of AttentionXML, a metadata standard to capture the attention a user spends on digital content. We suggest relying on attention metadata to unobtrusively capture the attention of employees at the workplace (e.g. through workflow systems, knowledge management systems, human resource management systems, etc.) and use the captured information to enable a targeted steering of learning process of the employee in companies in accordance with company’s and employee’s aims and goals.
Effectively managing organizational knowledge is a key in today’s knowledge intensive businesses to evolve a company’s future development. This essential task is supported by software systems, providing means to share, structure and work on knowledge items. In a case study at the Innovation Center Hamburg of Philips Semiconductors, different views on organizational knowledge determined by functional working contexts are elaborated. Considering these contexts, providing dynamic but also concise and recognizable structures to knowledge items as well as enabling cooperative work on them describe the main challenges of a supporting infrastructure. As a promising concept, the metaphor of virtual knowledge rooms is introduced. Based on a technical framework supporting this metaphor natively, a knowledge management system was developed, meeting all requirements and providing an extremely flexible and easy to maintain solution to the initial problem.
On the one hand models can be used as navigational tools respecting mental processing capabilities of persons. On the other hand models can be analyzed automatically by information systems to deduce relevant content for knowledge management IT-components as E-Learning-Applications, KM-Portals, document management systems, etc. Therefore models of knowledge intensive business processes are a natural integration layer for persons and information systems providing the relevant context to interpret and handle information the right way. It has only to be solved how to interface these models efficiently from a person as well as from an information system point of view.
The GPO-WM-Method combines the template-based GPO-WM-Process Analysis with the GPO-WM-Solution Base to support process teams with the integration of knowledge management activities into daily business processes. The template-based, participative approach is easy to learn, fosters awareness about the handling of knowledge, identifies strengths, weaknesses and needs for action and uses improvement ideas made by the process owner and employees for the joint work out of solutions. The GPO-WM-Solution Database with around 100 KM methods and tools supports the search for solutions. Design principles are supporting the implementation and integration of KM into the business process.
This paper describes an ontology supported software prototype that combines the advantages of existing Internet search engines with modern text analysis functionalities and an intelligent storage system for documents and knowledge items. The ontology assists the user in query definition and structures the storage of documents as well as knowledge items. The system is implemented and tested for the business case of SMEs that want to internationalise. It can easily be transferred to other domains just by changing the ontology.
We explored how the intended purpose of a knowledge model can influence the modelling process and in particular, how it impacts on the choice points of the underlying modelling methodology. We introduce a classification of knowledge models according to their intended scope, expressiveness and degree of acceptance. As a result, we aim to define critical success factors of methodologies for ontologies that are built by domain experts and that can be used as a basis for knowledge enabled (software) systems
The paper presents a new approach to developing a roadmap for technologyenhanced professional training. The new methodology views roadmapping as a knowledge creation process and involves the key phases of foresight analysis (identification of prevalent visions) and gap analysis. A conceptual model of the roadmapping process as a knowledge creation exercise is introduced and discussed.
Currently, it is a common understanding that most chances for growth of the economy lie in the area where new knowledge and the enlargement of the knowledge base are focused on the creation of new products and services. Hence, knowledge stands out as the basis for the creation of new and innovative products that result in added value in the economy. This paper discusses aspects of knowledge management within innovation processes and presents a software program to support innovation management. The innovation software described provides support with a process model that is structured according to the requirements of companies, by a systematic storage and management of accurate information for innovation processes and by the integration of already well-known innovation methods for the support of each phase of the innovation process.
This paper presents results of an empirical study on the use of knowledge management in logistics companies from Germany and Portugal. This study run in early 2006 aimed at understanding how important knowledge in those companies is, what and how strong the investments in knowledge were in 2004, what needs (defined as the difference between priorities and investments) did exist, and what the impacts of the investments in knowledge on the companies’ evolution between 2003 and 2005 were. The results achieved so far show clear differences, but also surprising similarities between the two countries. Furthermore, the impact of KM on the logistics performance is still hardly to be grasped.
The knowledge engineering offers a rational framework allowing a representation of knowledge obtained through the experiences. This technique found a great application in knowledge management and especially to capitalize knowledge. In fact, the rational representation of knowledge allows their exploitation and their re-use. It is a necessary condition to allow a re-use and a knowledge appropriation. The knowledge management must take into account this dimension, since its first concern is to make knowledge persistent, ready to be re-used. In this paper, we study the traces classifications of the design project achievements in order to have a knowledge aggregation and to thus provide a representation of handled knowledge, directives and competences organization as well as negotiation strategies and cooperative problems solving.
Knowledge sharing, exchange and communication are critical tasks in any knowledge management or e-commerce initiative. In order to solve these tasks ontologies can be used. But there are certain communication problems with ontologybased knowledge sharing and exchange connected with context. The paper describes these communication problems, defines two contexts types and suggests methodical basis of solution for communication problems. This methodical basis is considered and factored in the following case study using consecutive mapping between different of context types and content ontology. This case study describes Knowledge Navigator – a map that relates contents of Formalized Management methodology with the corresponding context in order to reach effective knowledge communication to end users.
This paper is going to introduce a hybrid problem solving algorithm developed for presenting and promoting the Costumer Knowledge Management (CKM). The algorithm consists of three main phases: at the first phase, the existing status of the CKM as well as its maturity level will be determined with consideration of the Just in Time (JIT) factor. Recognition of the problems pertaining to Knowledge Management Process (KMP) and JIT will be also addressed in this phase. In the second phase, the causes that have led to existing situation with regard to the three aspects namely human, Process and technology will be determined. The third phase of the algorithm includes the causes, conditions and proper strategies that are required for CKM promotion.
A novel approach for improving current practices of Knowledge Management within
an organization is introduced. This methodology is inspired upon the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and the Ibero-American Foundation for Quality Management (FUNDIBEQ) excellence models and Carnegie Mellon Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for software processes. The major contribution of this approach is to define a roadmap to reach further levels of maturity along five dimension of analysis, by stressing different areas for improvement. A survey instrument was developed to gather the subjective assessment of the members of the organization. This tool is supplemented by individual interviews and a workshop held with the key players to evaluate further evidence of maturity in each dimension.
In this article the focus lies on the modelling of knowledge processes for small and medium-sized enterprises. In the first part of this paper an empirical study conducted at the Department of Information Systems (University of Innsbruck) illustrates the key knowledge processes (knowledge acquisition, knowledge allocation, knowledge conservation, knowledge disposal) for SME. The result of this survey was a knowledge process model which links efficient methods of knowledge management to SME.
This paper describes our work on identifying relevant indicators for the characterization of Best Practice Cases (BPCs) for Knowledge Management (KM) introduction projects and for the assessment of their portability to other organisations. We scanned relevant KM literature and web pages for generating a basic set of indicators and verified these indicators through an open internet survey (n=103). For that purpose, we developed a web-based questionnaire where the respondents could prioritize the proposed indicators and assign them to one or more predefined classification schemes. We distinguished between indicators for the general description of an organisation, critical KM success factors, and indicators for the transferability of KM BPCs to other organisations. The evaluated results of the survey were used as an input for the development of an ontology-based reference model (description schema) for KM BPCs.
Digital non-linear story-telling is an ideal approach to share knowledge in large distributed communities and networks. Story-telling combines semantic knowledge and episodic knowledge by explicit problem solving strategies. To facilitate knowledge sharing authoring environments based on multimedia repositories as well as advanced story players are needed. Interoperability with existing information systems can be enhanced by relying on multimedia description standards like MPEG-7 and the use of W3C standard conform community hosting engines. We present an environment for sharing entrepreneurial knowledge by high quality video taped interview sequences from well-known high-tech entrepreneurs.
To obtain competitive advantage in Europe, it is crucial for small and medium sized enterprises (SME) to utilise knowledge efficiently and to enhance their innovation potential. Several national approaches of managing Intellectual Capital exist, but there is no European wide consensus or any empirical validity regarding managing Intellectual Capital. The different approaches have to be brought together and a suitable method for SME with minimum standards on the European level has to be developed. This paper shows existing approaches on measuring Intellectual Capital as well as the necessity of a European approach and the potential impact of an Intellectual Capital Statement (ICS) on the European level.
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.
Thesis reviewing is considered as a knowledge task that can be supported by computer-based techniques. The knowledge that underlies the reviewing is represented in a database where it can be shared between all concerned actors such as reviewers, thesis authors, and prospective thesis writers.
Scientific research centres and universities are knowledge-intensive institutions, where knowledge creation and distribution are constant – and this knowledge should be managed. In spite of this, scientific work has been known for being solitary work, in which human interaction takes place only in small groups within a research domain. Currently, due to technology improvements, scientific data from different sources is available, communication between researchers is facilitated and scientific information creation and exchange are faster than in the past. However, the focus on information exchange is too limited to create systems that enable true cooperation and knowledge management in scientific environments. To facilitate more expressive exchanging, sharing and dissemination of knowledge and its
management, we have created a scientific knowledge management environment in which researchers may share their data, experiences, ideas, process definition and execution, and obtain all the necessary information to perform their tasks, make decisions, learn and disseminate knowledge.
Knowledge discovery in data sources available on Computational Grids is a challenging research and development issue. Several Grid research activities addressing some facets of this process have already been reported. The GridMiner project (a joint work between the University of Vienna and Vienna University of Technology) aims, as the first Grid research effort, to cover all aspects of the knowledge discovery process and integrate them into an advanced service-oriented Grid application. The innovative architecture provides (1) a robust and reliable high performance data mining and OLAP environment (2) seamless access to intermediate data and results of the discovery process for further reuse in a standardized way (3) a persistant workspace for continuous and evolving data mining tasks supported via a flexible GUI. The interactive cooperation of different services – for data integration, data selection, data transformation, data mining, pattern evaluation, knowledge presentation and finally its storage – within the GridMiner architecture is the key to high performance knowledge discovery in large datasets.
Investigating the evolution of patrimonial architecture requires gathering and analysing a mass of documentary sources, the interpretation of which may authorise researchers to produce graphical simulations of the morphological evolutions of edifices. We have demonstrated that such representations can be used as graphic interfaces in which architectural objects are located in time and space. However in the field of the architectural heritage, due to the lack or incompleteness of the documentation, at the beginning of an investigation objects are often known to researchers only by their toponimical reference: their contextual names. In the early phases of an investigation process, it is most often impossible to state with any reasonable accuracy what morphology an object had. Moreover, other clues to the understanding of the edifice and its evolution, such as terminology/ontology or analogies, can be gathered by the researchers before someone actually states what morphology the object could have. Aiming at improving the comprehension of the complex and discontinuous process of knowledge acquisition we introduce a generic formalism of information integration that lets the researchers to gather indications little by little, and allows them to follow up visually the knowledge acquisition process. This paper introduces the use of toponymy as a start point for the analysis of the edifice, and
describes the formalism we have developed in order to generalise this approach.
Many companies have found that knowledge transfer between their projects does not function optimally and that significant chunks of knowledge are lost after the completion of projects. Final project reports, intended to transfer and save the experience acquired, typically contain only a fraction of the effectively accumulated knowledge. Subsequent projects therefore rarely profit from this empirical knowledge and frequently the result is duplicated work, repeated mistakes and, more seriously, project delays. Knowledge management within project management not only requires database solutions but also face-to-face exchange. This paper presents the “Inno-how” approach, a model of hypertext organization and related methods, that provides a framework for effective knowledge management.
The paper discusses differences between views on knowledge management that focus more on strategic or technical questions and those that focus on the question of the integration of working and learning. The core idea is that an understanding of knowledge management which focuses on learning-in-organizing [Gherardi, Nicolini 01] or situated learning [Lave, Wenger 91] leads to a paradigm shift in knowledge management. Furthermore the paper presents recent findings about the functioning of the brain that give us a better understanding of how knowledge is created and how it can be shared. Drawing on this, I will define some crucial consequences for the feedback-based dialogue, which ideas and essential components are described as a method that enables the integration of working and learning.
In recent years, both practitioners and scholars alike have emphasized the importance of organizational knowledge and learning as a source of competitive advantage. In this connexion, the integration of information technologies to foster these organizational sources has gained considerable attention. However, especially due to the innate characteristics of tacit knowledge, its handling is deemed to be extraordinarily difficult. This results primarily from the fact that tacit knowledge can only be disseminated via intricate interpersonal processes. Socialization is viewed as an appropriate approach but to date this is regarded as incommensurate with most existing information technologies. In this paper we argue that corporate weblogs – i.e. personalized and informal Internet publications referring to corporate concerns – constitute a viable option to deal with this dilemma while incorporating the possibility to codify as well as personalize tacit knowledge. By illuminating how to transcend the traditional impasse, we intend to contribute to knowledge management research and practitioners alike.
The management of knowledge and know-how becomes more and more important in organizations. Building corporate memories for conserving and sharing knowledge has become a rather common practice. However, we often forget that the efficiency of these activities is strictly connected to the appropriation capacities and learning of the organizational actors. It is through this learning that new skills can be acquired. In this paper, we propose general guidelines facilitating the process of creation and appropriation of professions memories built by means of methods from knowledge engineering and from educational engineering techniques.
This paper presents results from a survey of experts. The survey concerns the importance of creativity, learning, and knowledge management in the process of service development in companies as well as possibilities for supporting them. To emphasize the significance of the concepts creativity, learning, and knowledge management we describe a process model for the development of new services; this model follows current approaches in the field of service engineering and takes the three factors creativity, learning and knowledge management into account. Besides the methodological approach and the main findings of the survey of experts, the paper also shows the need for action regarding the support of service development processes in general and the three parts creativity, learning and knowledge management.
Although both e-learning and knowledge management are about facilitating learning in organization, the major obstacle to bring both of them together can be traced back to different paradigms of learning, resulting from the different nature of the knowledge they are dealing with. In this paper, a knowledge maturing process is presented to illustrate the change of nature and the discontinuities. This lays the foundation for a better understanding. In order to overcome the discontinuities, the consideration of context is proposed, which offers the required continuity.
Formalised service innovation is a central tenet of enterprise systems lifecycle phases. Event driven process models extended with knowledge objects are found to be not useful in early lifecycle phases. When an upgrade is required, a map of the knowledge infrastructure is needed to better design further service innovation because functional maps no longer adequately describe the context adequately. By looking at formal changes to business processes as service innovations, and recognising the knowledge infrastructure inherent in services generally, changes driven through technology such as ES can be better understood with the application of frameworks such as B-KIDE.
Besides typical challenges related to knowledge management (KM), EADS Military Aircraft is facing some specific challenges resulting from the company’s history as well as from its position in the military environment. This descriptive case study reports on the specific challenges and state-of-the-art of KM within a military company and presents some KM initiatives related to these challenges. Furthermore, challenges are related to corresponding concepts and criteria for selecting specific methodologies to tackle upcoming challenges. Finally, the authors are concluding this paper with several key success factors for KM within this environment and give an overview of the next steps.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is a decentralized networking paradigm where autonomous parties have equivalent capabilities in providing other parties with data and/or services. On the other hand, Knowledge Management (KM) is viewed as a core capacity in order to compete in the modern social and economic environment. In the view of the emerging semantic web technologies, P2P is looking for knowledge-driven domains to better exploit its technological potential. At the same time, driven by economical and social trends, KM is questioning its centralized nature assumption and is looking for a technological paradigm in order to benefit from exploiting its distributed dimension. In this paper we discuss the state of the art and trends in both the P2P and KM fields, discuss what possible synergies can benefit integrated P2P KM solutions, and present an implemented P2P KM system.
Extracting knowledge from audio recordings is frequently necessary in usability studies. At present, recordings are usually transferred to text before analysis begins. This is a long, tedious process, during which some information is lost. When analysing information, analysts work in text analysis tools that encourage them to organise ideas linearly. This is not always convenient to do. In this paper, we describe a tool that will allow users to organise audio recordings in a spatial environment without the need for full transcriptions.
In general, metainformation plays an important role in knowledge management for finding information. However, adding metainformation usually takes additional time. We work on WildDocs, a spatial-based knowledge management system. One of its main tasks is providing implicit metainformation that was added automatically during the structuring process without requiring a high cognitive load. This is supported by a detailed and less abstract structure model as well as by real world-based simulation of behavior. In this paper, we focus on emerging rotation, fixed sized documents, and binding mechanisms. We conclude that spatial structure techniques that consider physical limits and emerging structures may add important metainformation without significantly increased cognitive load on the user. We further point to our current and future implementation and the development of a special input device that supports efficient navigation on WildDocs’s space.
Knowledge sharing in communities has attracted much attention in the field of knowledge management in research and practice. In this paper we outline a view where the community lifecycle is supported at different stages. The central component of our framework is the community ontology SWRC+COIN that describes the typical structure of communities. We exemplarily show how communities in the academic domain can be detected automatically by means of analyzing information flow in a bibliographic Peer-to-Peer system and how the instantiated community knowledge base can be exploited to support cooperative work in the communities.
Several of the Communities of Practices (CoP) Alterra/Wing manages have reached their mid-life. Designed CoPs have come to life and have achieved alignment, from which we can learn. A growing interest can be signalised in using CoPs as management instruments and in governance. Governments are seeking new ways in policy making and new steering instruments. Using the case of agrologistics we describe how the Dutch government has used a CoP for complex planning and organizational problems. The social design, planning and management of a new CoP have linked together a wide range of stakeholders to establish a operational CoP. Alignment is a key factor in this transition to self-steering; the value of belonging is very powerful. Masters play an important role in setting up and in steering the CoP. CoPs can be developed as new instruments of governance, based on the theoretical concept of CoP.
In the paper, the emerging mobile knowledge portals are analysed both from the technological and knowledge management points of view. To this end, a description schema for mobile knowledge portals is introduced. In the framework of this schema, both knowledge management and mobile technology aspects and their impacts both on the user behaviour and on the internal structure and functionalities of the portals are taken into consideration. The potentials of mobile technology to leverage the knowledge portals functionalities are discussed in detail. In conclusion, potentials and future trends in development of mobile knowledge portals are discussed.
Knowledge creation processes in the cultural sciences have a discursive nature. The cultural scientists participating in these discourses build a community of practice. Reifications in information systems should support four concepts: (1) Content description by metadata, (2) coverage within standards, (3) repository technologies, and (4) platform independence of applications. By the combination of these concepts information systems support cultural scientists to extract and manage knowledge about high-level semantics of multimedia artifacts in open repositories with metadata annotations. Basic support for the latter can be achieved by a loose classification scheme as in Dublin Core, but with more sophisticated MPEG-7 description elements for time based media. We present a system called MEDINA for semi-automatic Dublin Core to MPEG-7 conversion to maintain media already annotated in Dublin Core.
A number of recent studies have contributed to Knowledge Management (KM) and E-learning integration. They are mainly based on organizational learning analysis. In this paper, KM is discussed from the viewpoint of adaptation in e-learning systems. The main components of adaptive e-learning system are discussed with respect to the KM processes. We analyze users and developers of adaptive e-learning systems and the knowledge, with which they operate. We present our view of knowledge and meta-knowledge concepts in the context of adaptive elearning systems. The role of meta-knowledge as a contextual knowledge is emphasized for adaptation in e-learning. The paper discusses the challenges of KM in adaptive e-learning systems and analyses the main KM processes that should be introduced in adaptive e-learning systems.
Bibster is a semantics-based Peer-to-Peer system for exchanging bibliographic data among researchers. Bibster exploits ontologies in data storage, query formulation, query routing and answer presentation. While the original Bibster system assumed a globally shared domain ontology, we here describe extensions to the Bibster system, that allow to learn personalized ontologies from the local bibliographic metadata. These personal ontologies can not only be used for subsequently classifying the bibliographic metadata, but also for supporting an improved query refinement process.
In recent years the possibility of applying knowledge management to logistics and to logistics planning has been put forward in literature. Despite of these discussions knowledge management has not been implemented in logistics in large scale. To draw a clear picture of the current state-of-implementation and understand the impact knowledge management activities have on a company’s logistics performance a comparative study is run with German and Portuguese logistics companies. The paper explains the theoretical background and practical implementation of this study and discusses a strategy to measure the investments in KM, access the needs of KM, and evaluate the impact of KM investments in the logistics sector. Although the study is still in progress, results are expected to be available for presentation at the conference.
This paper surveys knowledge management (KM) development using a literature review and classification of articles from 1995 to 2004 with a keyword index and article abstract in order to explore how KM performance evaluation has developed during this period. Based on the scope of 76 articles from 78 academic journals of KM, this paper surveys and classifies KM measurements using the following eight categories: qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, financial indicator analysis, non-financial indicator analysis, internal performance analysis, external performance analysis, project-oriented analysis, and organizational-oriented analysis together with their measurement matrices for different research and problem domains. Discussion is presented, indicating the followings future development directions for KM performance evaluation: (1) KM performance evaluation is getting more important. (2) The quantitative analysis is the primary methodology in KM performance evaluation. (3) Firms are now highlighting the KM performance of competitors, through benchmarking or best practices, rather than internally auditing KM performance via balanced scorecard. (4) Firms may begin to focus more on project management measurement, than on the entire organization.
This paper describes an ontology-based organizational knowledge representation framework focused on the specification of a two kinds of ontologies: the top level ontology containing concepts characterizing the typical organizational background and COKE ontologies representing so called core organizational knowledge entities. The framework constitutes an abstract representation of organizational knowledge providing a semantic support for designing knowledge management infrastructure able to interoperate with systems already existing in an organization. Moreover, the annotation of COKE w.r.t. the top level ontology allowed by the framework facilitates their semi-automatic handling, retrieval and evolution monitoring.
Although mobile knowledge management is being perceived as an emerging R&D field, its concepts and approaches are not well-settled, as opposed to the general field of knowledge management. In this paper, we try to fill this gap by establishing a definition for mKM, specifying the abstract use cases of mKM systems, and introducing a reference model as a basis for verifying and comparing concepts and system architectures.
The term knowledge management (KM) has lost most of its magic during the past few years: While knowledge has been identified as an important resource and key factor for productivity gains and innovation in organizations, there seems to be no generally applicable way to utilize this resource. One central problem is that knowledge – in contrast to information – must be seen as an internal resource that is often implicit and bound to human actors. This makes it hard to identify, localize and evaluate knowledge, and even harder to share or transfer it. Another problem is the question of willingness: Are actors in organizations willing to share their knowledge? And why should they? In this paper we present results of a field study that was conducted within a major national industrial association. The study focused on knowledge intense processes among the association and its member companies.
Organisations are searching for efficient training methods that fit to their specific demands. This paper presents the various training and knowledge sharing initiatives applied at Hewlett Packard Services Consulting and Integration (HPS C&I) for its Knowledge Management (KM) program. It outlines the usage of e-learning for our KM program but gives at the same time an idea how e-learning can be put on top of collaborative workspaces and be tied into the KM program.
In a corporate environment one would like to enable employees to learn from each other not only when co-located, but also in distributed settings: ideally access to experiences of others should be available from any location (e.g. another part of the globe) and at any time (e.g. after the expert retires). In these settings traditional apprenticeship models do not scale. In this paper we describe a case where the application of personal webpublishing technology seems to provide a “window” onto practice, creating an environment where people can observe and “steal” practices of each other. We explore how these apprenticeship-like relations between weblog authors are supported by processes of articulating, “stealing” and refining practices within the public weblog networks on the Internet. Finally, we also discuss possibilities of replicating these patterns and experiences in corporate settings.
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.
Current trends in collaborative knowledge management emphasize the importance of inter- and intra-organizational business process support. Enactment of business processes has primarily been a domain of workflow management systems. In this paper we propose a hybrid architecture for reconciliation of knowledge management and workflow management systems in order to support process participants in organizations, who are increasingly distributed and need to share and distribute knowledge artifacts. Today one pressing challenge is to utilize software as to create, share, and exchange (knowledge) work in collaborative knowledge activities across locations, while still being business process aware. This paper develops a conceptual framework, discusses a software architecture, and presents examples of a software system implementation for activity-based knowledge management for global project teams.
This paper explores a process view of call centres and the knowledge infrastructures that support these processes. As Call centres grow and become more complex in their function and organisation so do the knowledge infrastructures required to support their size and complexity. This study suggests a knowledge-based hierarchy of ‘advice-type’ call centres and discusses associated knowledge management strategies for different sized centres. It introduces a Knowledge Infrastructure Hierarchy model, with which it is possible to analyze and classify call centre knowledge infrastructures. The model also demonstrates different types of interventions supporting knowledge management in call centres. Finally the paper discusses the possibilities of applying traditional maturity model approaches in this context.
A well-functioning Knowledge Management (KM) is a competitive advantage for enterprises that act in co-operative and distributed networks with knowledge intensive production processes. A KM approach for distributed and dynamic entrepreneurial networks is currently missing. This paper presents a description model that comprises the relevant entities for an approach to KM in networks that integrates both new Information and Communication Technology driven organisational concepts and human-oriented approaches with KM methodologies and instruments.
PreBIS is a research-project1 that develops five core functions of context-aware collaborative information provision, based on user requirements in weakly structured and information intensive business processes. An innovative software architecture will be proposed, that adapts and combines processes, ontologies and document chunks. PreBIS realises four forms of “pre-building” an information space: at the document or information level, in systems integration, at the process level, and in learning routines. The discussions in the project allow some suggestions on how to characterise and handle the challenges in knowledge process modelling, as they were addressed by the aims of the conference.
Knowledge-based organizations such as universities have realized that effective development and management of their organizational knowledge base is critical to survival in today’s competitive business environment. The knowledge and expertise of a university’ staff who teach and research in different areas is the major asset that a university holds. In order to make use of this asset, there is a need to share expertise between staff as well as transfer expertise to industry. The need to be able to quickly locate experts with the specific expertise has been recognized by many universities. Traditional approach is to build an expertise database. However this approach heavily depends on individual expert and has problems in maintaining the up-to-date information. In this paper we discuss the development of an RDFbased Expertise Matcher suitable for use within an academic research environment. A key feature of this work is that the expertise profile is created based on the integration of multiple expertise indications stored in an organizational memory. In addition our approach combines the advantage of flexibility of keyword search and accuracy of concept search. An evaluation of the RDF-based Expertise Matcher has been conducted through an experiment and the key results are presented.
This document describes our current work on developing a framework which supports organizations in the successful implementation of Knowledge Management (KM). It follows the holistic approach of a KM introduction by considering technological, organizational and human aspects, as well as the organizational culture in equal measure. The framework provides recommendations based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) techniques and Semantic Web technologies. It supports the four processes of Aamodt & Plaza’s CBR-cycle. The best practice cases for a successful KM implementation are structured by the use of an ontology.
Based on an understanding of knowledge resolved into the concept pair “schema and its dependent instantiations” our paper describes in general the management of schemata in such a way potential users may validate their own acquired and available knowledge with respect to a provided knowledge base. The model describes fundamentals of classifying knowledge for users in particular situations requiring knowledge from various areas of expert systems. An application system with enhanced validation service is called an epistemic application system. The approach is based not on a formal but on a content-oriented language called material language on top of a rational grammar and a dictionary with a standardized reconstructed terminology.
There is an increasing number of different ways to represent knowledge structures on computers. Additionally, people want to use different devices, applications, or media for the same knowledge structures. To support this, we investigate structure interoperability, including transformation of structures and combination of different structure types. Our work focuses on structuring tasks using paper as well as those using computers. Our overall goal is to improve the usage of computers as tools for structuring knowledge work.
In this paper, adopting a structurationist perspective on technology, we explore the relationship between organizational forms and ICTs when the “matter” to deal with is knowledge production and innovation. The reason why such focus is relevant is twofold. On the one hand it has been widely underlined the importance of knowledge as strategic asset [Stewart 97]. On the other, is because we believe that many KM technology investments haven’t generate the expected results and benefits [Davenport 00]. A structuration theory reading of KM technologies could provide a lens in order to draw some interesting explanations on some problematic aspects of KM implementations and, moreover, on some interesting prescriptions on how future implementations should be approached.
This paper focuses on knowledge management in organizations going beyond traditional boundaries, through collaborations based on intangible assets. The analysis has been focused on the implications generated from the blend between the network organizational structure and knowledge management. A theoretical framework is provided in order to evaluate the impact of knowledge networks on knowledge management systems, identifying the most appropriate knowledge management strategies and processes, on the basis of network characteristics.
Regional authorities as responsible economic support institutions face different challenges to institutionalise and develop their regions in knowledge-based ones. The EU represents a major player in co-financing regional activities to support this transformation process and shows future trends. One approach to foster a transformation process is to define pilot projects within a programme and work with relevant regional stakeholders especially pilot project owners to generate an added value for the regional economy. This paper points out the design of such a pilot project approach and emphasise necessary determinants and preconditions. Pilot projects can unfold synergetic effects for the region when it is pre-defined what expected contributions to several regional targets are. An established framework is responsible for identifying and selecting pilot projects. A clear understanding of the regional target group is needed. Therefore a process to address knowledge management in the region has to be defined. Finally, creating a successful working environment is an often underestimated precondition.
Knowledge is more and more a key factor within companies. Nearly 40 percent of all employees are so called “knowledge workers“. Distribution and inquest of knowledge within companies are supported by skill management systems. Although not all aspects and potentials of this instrument are yet utilized skill management systems have spread widely within business organizations. This paper summarizes the requirements, scopes and problems for skill management system within the company.
This paper describes our current work in supporting the ad-hoc composition of teams, recruited from independent departments in an organisation, in order to solve a specific customer request. We propose the usage of a web-based decision support system using ontologies as a conceptual model for representing the organisation-specific competence portfolio. A case study shows the advantages of the proposed approach.
Knowledge management in construction projects is a challenging task for any client’s project manager due to several characteristics. The grade of involvement is dependent on the type of contract; it is possible to distinguish between design-and-build contract, coordinatedgeneral contract, and general contract. The type of contract regulates also the relations among the multiple involved companies. Another challenge for the project manager is the traditional separation in four phases; evaluation, planning, construction, and utilization phase. This high grad of diversity makes effective knowledge management dependent on the project manager, which normally has the broadest contacts within the project and good insights in all parts of the
project.
Based on a questionnaire study, which includes seventy three project managers representing fifty-one construction projects of varying size, project type (e.g. housing, infrastructure), and contract form, this paper illustrates the project managers possibilities to create and distribute knowledge in and between construction projects. The results show that large construction projects performed under a design-and-build contract provide the best environment for creating and distributing knowledge by the project manager. Furthermore, project managers with little or very large experience make most efforts to create knowledge.
The paper discusses the integration of codified and tacit knowledge as a potential source of competitive advantage. The management of explicit knowledge is viewed through knowledge management practices, whereas the management of tacit knowledge is conceptualised through strategic human resource management. The paper presents the empirical results of testing of low- and high-synergy models of knowledge integration on a representative sample of large Croatian enterprises.
Hewlett Packard services consulting and integration (HPS C&I) has had worldwide Knowledge Management programs for over 6 years, but until recently they had not developed a consistent set of monthly KM measures. In late 2003, HPS C&I established a set of 6 worldwide measures, which are described in this presentation. We also discovered that there was value in having uniform worldwide measures, but we could not establish uniform worldwide goals. The reason for this had to do with wide variability in business maturity and English language capability within our workforce. Consequently, we assigned each country into one of four “bands” and set different goals for each band. The presentation provides details on this aspect of our measurement program. Actual performance is not presented, because it is deemed company confidential.
Topic Maps are a knowledge representation standard. Distributed Knowledge Management describes a knowledge-based organization as network of more or less independent units (Knowledge Node) which create and exchange knowledge. This paper describes how Topic Maps can be used to model organizational and spatial structure of DKMS and interaction scenarios between Knowledge Nodes. Deployment of a runtime system is discussed and how measurements at runtime can be used to reveal unknown Knowledge Nodes and interaction
pattern inside a DKMS.
This paper argues that structuring of knowledge is a natural and central part of knowledge management. The paper presents a scenario that envisions how scholarly work (as an example of a knowledge management task) can benefit from various types of structuring support. The paper also reviews past and present work and outlines future work on the Construct structural computing system to provide the envisioned structuring support for scholarly work processes.
Knowledge work often involves structuring information. Structural computing systems have been used successfully to support structuring work in a wide variety of application domains. In this paper, we discuss supporting two computational linguistics applications with two different structural computing systems, comparing and contrasting their designs and implementations.
Companies are starting to recognise synergies between knowledge management, training and e-learning programs, but a closer look reveals that these integration ideas are rarely implemented in practice. The goal of this paper is to provide a starting point for collaboration between corporate KM and HR/learning teams by mapping existing practices of linking KM, training and e-learning efforts. We provide an overview of experiences and future ideas of collaboration derived from several studies, group them in three themes and then illustrate each theme with a scenario. The first theme gives examples of using HR and training instruments to support knowledge management. The second theme represents cases of using KM methods (namely a community of practice) to support HR learning management efforts. The last theme describes how KM and HR/learning teams could work on joint initiatives. Then we discuss the added value of the scenarios and propose further practical steps and research directions.
The effective use, preservation and creation of knowledge in design-type work processes is of vital interest for an enterprise. We present the CLOCKWORK approach to organizational learning which comprises a web-based toolset to structure, store and retrieve knowledge elements created during all phases of the product development. The examination and re-use of this knowledge base across different design processes as well as the consideration of earlier aftersales experiences during product design are key steps towards systematic organizational learning. The solution is presented using an example from the speciality engineering domain.
In spite of the growing number of KMS emanating from academia, only few of these systems seem to be actively used by their creators. We can only speculate about the reasons, but lack of usability and support for real-life business processes are likely to be two of them. This paper presents the Infolayer, a KMS developed at the Artificial Intelligence unit at Dortmund university. Originally developed as an integrated information infrastructure for human users and software agents within a specific project, it has grown into a general KMS solution. Where other systems are built around complex reasoning capabilities based on Description Logics, the Infolayer’s focus is ease of use, customizability and integration of industry standards like UML. The system is being actively used to drive the intranet/internet presence of our unit as well as a number of other projects.
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.
Algorithmic research is an established knowledge engineering process that has allowed researchers to identify new or significant problems, to better understand existing approaches and experimental results, and to obtain new, effective and efficient solutions. While algorithmic researchers regularly contribute to this knowledge base by proposing new problems and novel solutions, the processes currently used to share this knowledge are inefficient, resulting in unproductive overhead. Most of these publication-centred processes lack explicit high-level knowledge structures to support efficient knowledge management. The authors describe a problem-centred collaborative knowledge management architecture associated with Computational Problem Solving (CPS). Specifically we articulate the structure and flow of such knowledge by making in-depth analysis of the needs of algorithmic researchers, and then extract the ontology. We also propose a knowledge flow measurement methodology to provide human-centred evaluations of research activities within the knowledge structure. This measurement enables us to highlight active research topics and to identify influential researchers. The collaborative knowledge management architecture was realized by implementing an Open Computational Problem Solving (OpenCPS) Knowledge Portal, which is an open-source project accessible at http://www.opencps.org.
A project memory is a representation of the experience acquired during projects realization. It can be gotten through a continuous capitalization of the enterprise activity, notably its design rationale. Most of capitalization methods don’t allow a design rationale structuring in real time. We propose in this paper, a dynamic process of knowledge modelling, offering a way to keep track of Knowledge in two stages: direct transcription and structuring.
Infrastructures developed to support knowledge management activities are usually designed in such way that queries and search for specific information, for a certain piece of knowledge or meta-knowledge becomes easier or even possible at all. The user is expected to know and be able to express precisely what he or she wants to know, otherwise intuition becomes the key factor in this process and the kind of information or knowledge units provided may strongly be influenced by randomness. On the other hand it’s also not really helpful (and often even disturbing or annoying) to automatically come up with information, knowledge units, links or hints without request. Instead users should be supported in the way they need. For this, the paper presents a conceptual framework enabling to integrate knowledge management into problem solving instead of being attached to or linked with it. Although this framework is developed to meet the needs of problem solving processes in logistics planning, it contains a more generic approach that can be applied to other knowledge areas as well.
We present a novel approach of extracting a domain ontology from large-scale thesauri. Concepts are identified to be relevant for a domain based on their frequent occurrence in domain texts. The approach allows to bootstrap the ontology engineering process from given legacy thesauri and identifies an initial domain ontology that may easily be refined by experts in a later stage. We present a thorough evaluation of the results obtained in building a biosecurity ontology for the UN FAO AOS project.
Profiting from Social Capital when Building Network Organizations
In knowledge economy, companies and organisations build sustainable competitive advantages not only relying on their internal intellectual capital but also on the intellectual capital of other companies, organisations and institutions and specifically on those of the cluster [Porter, 1990], microcluster or territory where the company is located. This kind of intellectual capital, basically external and of a relational nature is one of the main constituents of the networked organisation and (will be called) from now on Social Capital [Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998] because it is embedded in the social fabric (texture) of the nearby environment. SCBS (Social Capital Benchmarking System) is both a new management method and a new management tool, that identifies, audits and benchmarks the resources and capabilities or the social capital, existing in alternative cluster locations that are necessary in order to develop the specific network organisation that each particular business model requires. The system has been successfully piloted in five European enterprises.
Due to contradictory results obtained in Knowledge Management initiatives a model of audit is presented. The main action in the international project “Strateg” is the development and application of a model to diagnose and propose suitable recommendations concerning the management of knowledge and intellectual capital of a firm. A brief description of the model is presented after the exposition of its key scientific assumptions. Finally, the current state of the project is reviewed.
Based on the observation that on one hand a lot of knowledge management initiatives lack of a precise assessment of the relevant knowledge assets and that on the other hand actual concepts of knowledge audits lack of a sound theoretical basis, the aim of this paper is to describe the theoretical basics of such a knowledge audit: Its core idea lies in the integration of knowledge stock- and knowledge flow measurement. The concept of Intellectual Capital (IC) makes clear that knowledge measurement from this perspective deals with the measurement of knowledge stocks. Hence, the impact of IC investments at the beginning of a period can be identified in an increased knowledge stock at the end of the period. Unfortunately, IC measurement approaches do not provide managers with explicit recommendations on how to deal with the resource knowledge within a period. Hence, managers can be provided with knowledge flow measures in order to be able to manage the resource knowledge more specifically. A case study illustrates the benefits of knowledge flow measurement in order to plan and evaluate knowledge management projects explicitly.
In order to survive organisations are in need of more efficient utilization of human resources and intellectual capital. As the nature of organisations has become more knowledgeintensive, the importance of competencies, i.e. knowledge and skills, is emphasised. Intellectual capital management is one of the growing functions in Finnish companies. For example, competence management and knowledge management are considered to be an important part of it.
The focus of this study is on intellectual capital management in the Finnish TOP 50 companies. The role of competencies and knowledge in contemporary business is significant. In intellectual capital management competence management and knowledge management play an important role. Therefore, this study focused especially on competence and knowledge management in the Finnish TOP 50 companies.
The study was based on a survey conducted during autumn 2002. The target group was the TOP 50 Finnish companies and the informants were from HRM-functions. The survey was conducted by telephone and a questionnaire was e-mailed to the respondents beforehand. The aim of the study is to illustrate the use of intellectual capital management, especially competence and knowledge management in the Finnish TOP 50 companies, from HRM perspective. It was assumed that every Finnish TOP 50 company uses intellectual capital
management to some extent. As there have previously been only case studies, there is a need for this study. Almost every company from the Finnish TOP 50 companies had systematic activities for managing intellectual capital management. The most common terms for intellectual capital management functions were competence management and competence development. The most common reason for beginning intellectual capital management activities had been the need for knowledge on personnel competencies and their development in operative functions. All respondents emphasised the importance of the role of intellectual capital management in gaining knowledge on personnel competencies. The aim of intellectual capital management in most of the companies was the development of personnel competencies and knowledge. According to the respondents, changes related to intellectual capital management are expected within the next five years. Many of the informants said that the relationship of intellectual capital management and strategy would intensify in the next five years. It was also expected that centralized information and knowledge management would increase, when at the same time it was expected that in practice it would disperse into different functions within the organization.
Knowledge management case studies in most cases focus on one or a few applications. Typically, the discussion is limited to what has been found out in the past. On the other hand, numerous authors have reported on the technological aspects at a high level of abstraction, where no specific business cases were taken into account. There are polls and surveys to identify potential future trends, but these typically investigate a serious of market segments without making specific statements about KM in the automotive industry. In this paper we hope to bridge this gap: in order to identify the potential benefits of KM, we will survey some of the literature describing recent, current, as well as expected future developments in the automotive industry. In particular, expand on three key trends in order to discuss potential benefits from Collaborative KM: the supply chain, improvements in engine development, and providing the industry with skilled workers. We found that the following are interesting applications from the point of view of Collaborative KM: (1) collaborative partner extranets (to support the supply chain), (2) inter-company collaboration, training to be tied into every-day work, KM to support Quality Management (to assist in the improvements of engine performance), and (3) e-learning combined with helpdesk automation and a knowledge base (in order to help provide the industry with skilled workers).
In the paper the applications to the 2002 Knowledge Management Award are discussed in relation to measuring the benefits of KM. It is concluded that benefits of KM initiatives depend on the KM approach taken.
This paper is based on on-going research carried out in the framework of an EU project aimed at enhancing knowledge management (KM) in enterprises. It deals with the impact of (inter)cultural factors on the accessibility and presentation of eLearning content. Once the empirical research is completed and the data analysed, guidelines will be proposed for developing Web-based training modules for culturally heterogeneous user groups sharing the same professional background. Special consideration will be given to contextual and community features.
The present state of research on competence management does not provide any suitable model that can be used in practice. This article presents a model for integrated competence management, which gives approaches from both cognitive science and organizational science a practical framework of action.
An Example of a Group Memory System for the Management of Group Competencies
Knowledge Intensive Organisations (KIOs), that is organisations built on their use intellectual capital, need to create an environment that facilitates the effective deployment and reuse of existing organisational knowledge. As people transform data, information and experiences into shared knowledge, the management of individual competencies has become increasingly important to these organisations. Knowledge gained during the normal execution of daily tasks is easily lost in the dynamic environment of modern business. The ability to find versatile employees and to be able to leverage their knowledge to meet differing corporate needs, is a matter of vital importance for KIOs. This paper describes an ontological framework focused on competence elements that are modelled as knowledge assets in a group memory. A group memory is taken to be a specific example of an organisational memory. The dynamics of group competencies as a key organisational resource is emphasised and a model for a group memory system to manage corporate competencies in a KIO is presented.
This papers presents an innovative approach to solve the problem of missing transparency over competences within virtual organizations. We based our work on empirical studies on the problem to cope with the problem of competence finding in such distributed organizations. Former studies have shown that central storage of profiles is inappropriate due to missing flexibility and high costs on maintenance. Our approach presented here to support the peripheral awareness of competence-indicating events. Those events can be collected, stored and interpreted by the system without further work of the users. This idea is based on existing works on the awareness in computer-supported cooperative work scenarios.
This paper presents an approach to supporting the exchange of knowledge in communities of practice that connect experts from different fields of expertise. The developed system allows unobtrusive construction of personalised knowledge maps that capture implicit knowledge of individuals and groups of users and make it usable for collaborative structuring of shared information repositories. The personalised maps also reflect the global patterns of knowledge exchange in the community which allows the extraction of a shared conceptual structure that connects knowledge across different individuals and groups of users. To this end techniques for self-organised clustering are combined with methods for supervised learning and collaborative filtering. Application scenarios include automatic generation of personalised knowledge portals, collaborative knowledge management and the construction of shared ontologies and topic networks. The real-world testbed is the Internet platfom netzspannung.org.
Combining the words ‘knowIedge‘ and ‘management’ into Knowledge Management is confusing. Knowledge resides within professionals and cannot be managed in a direct way. This paper proposes the concept of Knowledge Cycle Management. First, it describes the Knowledge Cycle. Successful Knowledge Cycle Management requires knowledge cycle behaviour of all professionals. But what can an enterprise or its management do to actually change the behaviour of professionals in order to improve the knowledge cycle? To answer this question, this paper discusses the Model of Focused Change of Behaviour. This paper ends by presenting an integrated approach to improve the knowledge cycle behaviour of professionals.
Knowledge Flow Management is our newly proposed knowledge sharing and knowledge management approach, which can realize the tightly coupled and efficient knowledge sharing by optimizing the knowledge flow process. Incorporating the knowledge flow with the loosely coupled knowledge-sharing paradigms is a solution to balance the efficiency and flexibility. This paper first presents the concepts and methods of the Knowledge Flow and the Knowledge Grid and then presents the approach to incorporate them. The case of applying the approach to realize knowledge management in distributed software development team is studied.
This paper describes experience gained in implementation of Knowledge Management models and instruments in a cross—organisational research setup. concretely in a case of Delft Cluster Knowledge Centre. The role of Knowledge Management and in particular of Communities of Practice in Delft Cluster is outlined, followed by an extended list of Lessons Learned.
Employing collaboration technology for Knowledge Management some inherent challenges have to be met. One important prerequisite is that users adjust their patterns of interaction and cooperation and agree on the adjustments of others so they can practice cooperative knowledge management to their satisfaction. ln dynamic environments, however, the patterns of cooperation must he continuously reassessed and revised. This paper suggest an approach to record and display process information in a way that makes transparent the patterns of interaction and produces navigable process displays that can be incorporated into work routines. We introduce a technical architecture, describe a concrete usage scenario and reflect on potential applications.
The engineering domain features various information sources and is heterogeneous in multiple ways, Managing its specific knowledge requires adapting to these characteristics. In order to ensure the success of software that is to support the exchange and use of information within this domain, the extraction of relevant metadata should be adequately supported. Since the meta information describing the information items is as heterogeneous as they are themselves, various means have to be combined in a modular architecture.
This paper presents research results obtained from the project Personal Adaptable Digital Library Environment (PADDLE). The main focus of the DFG funded research project E; is to apply concepts of knowledge management to digital libraries by introducing personalization techniques. The idea is to enable the specific needs, experiences, skills and tasks of a knowledge worker using a digital library could be taken into account. Metadata is the key issue for doing this. Therefore the PADDLE system architecture describes a metadata . manager, which allows the association of metadata with the knowledge objects stored in distributed information resources. Based on this architecture several personalization concepts like workspaces and profiles are introduced. Finally, a geographic information portal is described that realizes a new way of seeking and accessing geodata related knowledge objects within a digital library.
The usefulness and desirability of high-quality metadata in information and knowledge management tasks is widely acknowledged. However, the methods for managing metadata generally treat the metadata as “second-class” objects. ln other types of information systems, information management techniques specihcally designed for the unique charateristics of metadata have been designed, implemented, and refined for many decades, albeit in different settings. ln this paper, we consider the lessons learned from structural computing systems with respect to metadata management, and how these lessons generalize to other knowledge management tasks.
The loss of an employee – voluntarily or involuntarily – represents a great risk of losing information and know how as well as breaks the natural knowledge flow. We developed the Knowledge Transfer Meeting Methodology in order to reduce the “brain drain” through a systematic hand-over. The Knowledge Transfer Meeting consists of five modules that support the retrieval and sharing of knowledge systematically and explicitly. The approach promotes a mentorship or partnership philosophy, motivating the leaving employee to share his or her knowledge and experience with a successor. For the implementation of the Knowledge Transfer Meeting Methodology in the company, we identify and train so-called “facilitators” who lead the participants through the process and hence support and spread the methodology within the company.
This article outlines new technologies in the areas of automated expertise finding, expert network discover, virtual place-based collaboration, and automated question answering. We illustrate each of these areas with implemented and in some cases empirically evaluated systems. Collectively, these illustrate new methods for automatic discovery of knowledge, experts, and communities in an effective and efficient manner.
The process of knowledge and intellectual capital management aims to improve organisational performance and efficiency. Knowledge is a distinct capability that contributes to the improvement of this efficiency. Learning is an integral part of the knowledge system and can be identified by deconstructing available organisational knowledge. This paper offers an interpretative perspective of knowledge and intellectual capital development; it also examines previously fractured contextual approaches to organisational management research, which often fail to include learning as a significant factor for both absorbing and recognising the knowledge capabilities of a firm. Based on the results from a study conducted across 140 companies as well as selected case studies, this paper investigates learning mechanisms and their role in building a firm’s knowledge capabilities. This paper argues that learning is an integral part of the knowledge process in which learning acts as an endogenous factor for the development, absorption and utilisation of knowledge. The search continues for an appropriate epistemological framework in the area of management research under which organisational learning theories can be analysed while simultaneously remaining relevant and useful to the pragmatics of organisational knowledge development.
In IT-supported knowledge management (KM), the software user interface is at the boundary between persons and the knowledge management system (KMS). It plays a central role because seen from the users point of view, the user interface is the system. This paper presents a case study in which a particular User Interface Design methodology was employed to design a prototype KMS user interface for an inbound call center. In this example, we combine knowledge re-use and expert location.
Starting from text corpus analysis with linguistic and statistical analysis algorithms, an infrastructure for text mining is described which uses collocation analysis as a central tool.
This text mining method may be applied to different domains as well as languages. Some examples taken form large reference databases motivate the applicability to knowledge management using declarative standards of information structuring and description. The ISO/IEC Topic Map standard is introduced as a candidate for rich metadata description of information resources and it is shown how text mining can be used for automatic topic map generation.
The generation of technical knowledge abounds while the underusage of existing knowledge potential remains a problem in business as well as in society. Generally speaking value can be extracted from knowledge in three ways:
- by exclusive use
- by faster access
- by better translation of public knowledge into products that yield private profit
Each way requires different approaches to KM. But in all cases the problem of how to deal with abundance arises: It arises at the individual as well as at the level of interface design in a knowledge dividing society.
First ideas to solve that problem refer to the individual rather than the interface design level:
- technical solutions
- psychological solutions
- neurological solutions
deal with the growing gap between abundant potential knowledge and scarce human attention on the one hand and with restricted human capacity to process information on the other.
For the time being a clear focus on good old virtues, such as will (focus), modesty (less is more) and courage (to decide under conditions of incomplete information and uncertainty) seem as trivial intellectually as hard to implement in practice.
New wireless protocols like W-LAN and Bluetooth allow establishing spontaneous networks and peer-to-peer exchange of information. At the same time standards like Semantic Web and Topic Maps gain acceptance that add semantics to information. This paper introduces Shark. Shark is an acronym and stands for “Mobile Shared Knowledge”. Shark organizes knowledge with help of Topic Maps, synchronizes knowledge inside closed user groups but also enables a peer-to-peer exchange of knowledge by means of Bluetooth. This paper gives an overview of the system and its communication protocols.
New Learning in analogy to New Economy means a new paradigm of learning. Old Learning was learning with a continuous learning history in mind. New Learning means, that the continuity of a learning history is stored in a computer memory and can be quickly accessed. The external storage generates a better and more precise continuity of individual historical learning experiences and shifts the focus of cognitive energy to cognitive creativity. If knowledge is managable as the new discipline knowledge management offers, this new approach will make sense.
This case study illustrates the knowledge management framework that was designed during the introduction of knowledge management instruments at Siemens Business Services GmbH & Co. or SBS, as it is known. The knowledge management framework will give the reader an understanding of the holistic approach to knowledge management and the different stages of implementation. It also introduces the key learning processes experienced by Siemens Business Services (SBS) during the various implementation phases. The knowledge management (KM) requirements, challenges and solutions within the service business are highlighted. The case study also shows the challenges and objectives of knowledge management (KM) programs, in general, and at Siemens Business Services (SBS), in particular. Based on the experience of the implementation of KM at SBS, the case study closes with critical success factors for other KM implementations, both within and outside Siemens.
The efficient management of knowledge has become imperative for almost all types of organizations. Many approaches exist for dealing with knowledge management at a corporate level. But there is also a need to support knowledge management also at an individual level, a level which takes the specific needs, experiences and skills of knowledge workers into account. While largely unexplored within the field of knowledge management, in the field of digital libraries advanced personalization and customization concepts exist. Within this context, this paper examines these concepts and how they can be exploited to address the challenges which are typical for knowledge management. As the paper will show, many synergies exist, if knowledge management at an individual level is dealt with in combination with personal digital libraries.
The utilization of new emerging standards such as MPEG-7 is expected to be a major breakthrough for content-based multimedia data retrieval. The main features of the MPEG standards series and of related standards, formats and protocols are presented. It is discussed, how they, despite their partially early and immature stage, can best be utilized to yield effective results in the context of a knowledge management environment. Complementary to that, the current status and state of the art in content-based retrieval for images, video and audio content is briefly presented. In the context of the KNOW-Center we are developing a prototype platform to implement a user friendly and highly informative access to audiovisual content as a potential component for a future knowledge management system. The technical requirements and the system architecture for the prototype platform are described.
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.
This paper deals with a general approach to knowledge management in companies and organizations. It strongly builds on insights concerning knowledge processing in superorganisms and reflects years of FAW experiences in applications. The paper in particular shows how (1) human resources, (2) issues of organization and (3) new IT systems interact in achieving a higher level of competence and competitiveness. In this context, dealing with non-explicit sources of knowledge is a major issue, too.
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.