Co-Operative Inquiry as a basis for Evaluation of Knowledge Management Tools

This paper highlights the changes needed in the practice of IT evaluation when directed towards IT used to support knowledge management. The paper addresses the need for evaluation to recognise the increased emphasis on IT supporting the work of communities of practice in contrast to simply automating organisational processes. A framework that uses a form of action research (co-operative inquiry) is suggested that attempts to widen participation within the evaluation process and to enrich the purpose to which evaluation is put, especially in regard to the IS practitioner and IS users

Impact in networks and ecosystems: building case studies that make a difference

open accessThis toolkit aims to support the building up of case studies that show the impact of project activities aiming to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. The case studies respond to the challenge of understanding what kinds of interventions work in the Southern African region, where, and why. The toolkit has a specific focus on entrepreneurial ecosystems and proposes a method of mapping out the actors and their relationships over time. The aim is to understand the changes that take place in the ecosystems. These changes are seen to be indicators of impact as increased connectivity and activity in ecosystems are key enablers of innovation. Innovations usually happen together with matching social and institutional adjustments, facilitating the translation of inventions into new or improved products and services. Similarly, the processes supporting entrepreneurship are guided by policies implemented in the common framework provided by innovation systems. Overall, policies related to systems of innovation are by nature networking policies applied throughout the socioeconomic framework of society to pool scarce resources and make various sectors work in coordination with each other. Most participating SAIS countries already have some kinds of identifiable systems of innovation in place both on national and regional levels, but the lack of appropriate institutions, policies, financial instruments, human resources, and support systems, together with underdeveloped markets, create inefficiencies and gaps in systemic cooperation and collaboration. In other words, we do not always know what works and what does not. On another level, engaging users and intermediaries at the local level and driving the development of local innovation ecosystems within which local culture, especially in urban settings, has evident impact on how collaboration and competition is both seen and done. In this complex environment, organisations supporting entrepreneurship and innovation often find it difficult to create or apply relevant knowledge and appropriate networking tools, approaches, and methods needed to put their processes to work for broader developmental goals. To further enable these organisations’ work, it is necessary to understand what works and why in a given environment. Enhanced local and regional cooperation promoted by SAIS Innovation Fund projects can generate new data on this little-explored area in Southern Africa. Data-driven knowledge on entrepreneurship and innovation support best practices as well as effective and efficient management of entrepreneurial ecosystems can support replication and inform policymaking, leading thus to a wider impact than just that of the immediate reported projects and initiatives

Demonstrating Flexible Support for Knowledge-Intensive Processes with proCollab

Knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) are driven by knowledge workers utilizing their skills, experiences, and expertise. As these processes are emergent and unpredictable, their support constitutes a big challenge. For coordinating and synchronizing the various tasks of a KiPs, knowledge workers still rely on simple task lists like, e.g., to-do list or checklists. Though task lists are intuitive, their current implementations are very ineffective: tasks are neither made explicit nor are they personalized or synchronized. In addition, no task management lifecycle support is provided and media disruptions frequently occur. This tool demonstration presents the proCollab framework supporting a wide range of KiPs (e.g., projects and cases) through integrated, lifecycle-based task management. In particular, proCollab task trees support the provision of task list templates and to constitute digital task lists of any kind. For customization, it further allows integrating domain-specific methodologies as well as configuring task lists at design and run time. Overall, the proCollab framework shall improve coordination among knowledge workers, increase work awareness, and record valuable coordination efforts

Knowledge Graphs for Data And Knowledge Management in Cyber-Physical Production Systems

Cyber-physical production systems are constituted of various sub-systems in a production environment, from machines to logistics networks, that are connected and exchange data in real-time. Every sub-system consumes and generates data. This data has the potential to support decision making and optimization of production processes. To extract valuable information from this data, however, different data sources must be consolidated and analyzed. A Knowledge Graph (KG), also known as a semantic network, represents a net of real-world entities, i.e., machines, sensors, processes, or concepts, and illustrates their relationship. KG allows us to encode the knowledge and data context into a human interpretable form and is amenable to automated analysis and inference. This paper presents the potential of KG in manufacturing and proposes a framework for its implementation. The proposed framework should assist practitioners in integrating raw data from multiple data sources in production, developing a suitable data model, creating the knowledge graph, and using it in a graph application. Although the framework is applicable for different purposes, this work illustrates its use for supporting the quality assessment of products in a discrete manufacturing production line

Applying the knowledge to action (K2A) framework : questions to guide planning

Translating scientific knowledge into action (K2A) to improve the public\u2019s health is a priority for the CDC. Scientists and practitioners from CDC\u2019s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion formed the WGOT in 2007 to foster translation at CDC. An initial step created a cross-division, cross-discipline organizing framework for the translation process. The work group reviewed the literature about translation of research to practice, including related frameworks and theoretical models, and drew upon their own experiences and observations related to translation to develop the K2A framework. The K2A framework has since been vetted by CDC and peer review.The K2A framework describes and depicts the high-level processes necessary to move from discovery into action by using translation of evidence-based programs, practices, or policies\u2014broadly defined to include evidence-based communications, campaigns, guidelines, and other interventions and tools. The framework identifies three components (i.e., research, translation, and institutionalization) and the decision points, interactions, and supporting structures within the components that are necessary to move knowledge to sustainable action (Figure 1). Evaluation undergirds the entire K2A process.Applying the Knowledge to Action (K2A) Framework: Questions to Guide Planning (Planning Tool) was developed by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion\u2019s Work Group on Translation (WGOT). The WGOT is a cross-division work group created to share translation-related experiences and observations, and advance translation and related work within the center, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The development of this Planning Tool exemplifies the collaborative work performed by the WGOT to facilitate the processes of moving knowledge into public health action.Suggested citation: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Applying the Knowledge to Action (K2A) Framework: Questions to Guide Planning. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Dept of Health and Human Services; 2014.k2a-framework-6-2015.pdf2014921

IT governance mechanisms in higher education

Information technology (IT) has become essential in supporting the growth and sustainability of all types of organizations. Higher education institutions are a special type of organization where technological infrastructure consists of a variety of applications, different platforms, academic systems, cloud applications and heterogeneous technologies. All these technologies for supporting the research, teaching and administrative processes require an effective IT governance framework. The framework of IT governance is composed of structures, processes and relational mechanisms. Each one of these mechanisms has a function and when implemented, should affect the organization positively. The process of identifying the right mechanisms to a specific context is a complex endeavor. This paper looks at the IT governance mechanism that higher education institutions have implemented. We did an extensive literature review making use of databases such as Web of Science, IEEE, SCOPUS, or AIS eLibrary for selecting case studies. We discuss these practices in the context of higher education. To continue this research and improve the IT governance body of knowledge for higher education institutions, future works are pointed out.This work was supported by CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil Process n.º10415/13-0 and by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, project UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Lean system implementation strategy and knowledge framework

Current research has exposed the fact that organisations in South Africa grapple with the implementation of lean systems. Lean systems affect the entire organisation and require strategies which link core and supporting processes from end-to-end. In many cases it requires the redesign of the supply chains’ supporting activities or processes that provide added value to the business processes of the organisation. Contemporary research postulates that to be successful, an organisation should have specific objectives when implementing a lean system. The objectives would ensure a smooth, rapid flow of materials and or work through a system. Primarily it compels management to perform a health-check or business capability performance gap analysis before attempting to formulate a lean implementation strategy. The objective of the paper based on topical research, is the development of a health-check. In developing a knowledge framework and measurement model, various tools were used for statistical analysis. The framework would assist organisations in identifying critical success factors during the implementation of lean. It addresses lean implementation strategy confirming the overall business improvement endeavour through value adding activities. An added advantage is that it would assist an organisation in performing a capability performance health-check before embarking on a lean or value adding project

An integrated framework for supporting fuzzy decision-making in networked manufacturing environments

In this paper we propose an integrated framework, based on smart objects to support fuzzy decision-making processes applied to manufacturing environments. The processes involved range from factory-production level up to higher decision-making levels, either in the context of traditional single enterprises, up to the one of supply chains and distributed and ubiquitous manufacturing environments. Therefore, the proposed framework promotes contributions for solving different kind of problems, including, among others: networked supply chain management; production planning and control; factory supervision and productivity management; real-time monitoring; data acquisition and processing. The web access via different middleware devices and tools at different process levels, along with the use of integrated algorithms and smart objects, which is possible and will promote an optimized use of knowledge and resources for supporting better decision-making. Moreover, the proposed framework also aims at promoting a wider collaboration process among various groups of stakeholders.This work was supported by FCT “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia” under the program: PEst20152020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Advanced Concepts for Task List Lifecycle Support

Globalization and the shift towards a knowledge-based society have increased the importance of knowledge work and in particular knowledge-intensive processes (KiPs) in highly developed countries. As a result, knowledge workers demand suitable information systems supporting their collaboration in knowledge-intensive processes. However, due to their difficult characteristics, there is still no such adequate support for KiPs. A KiP-supporting system needs to provide digital, lifecycle-based task lists to ensure sustainable support. Today, knowledge workers usually organize and manage their collaborative work in a KiP using paper-based task lists, e.g. to-do lists or checklists. Although task lists are intuitive and widely used, their current implementations tend to be ineffective and error-prone. Task lists are neither synchronized nor accessible by several knowledge workers simultaneously. In addition, no task list lifecycle support is provided and media disruptions aggravate task management. As a consequence, the efforts of knowledge workers in task management are not exploited for the optimization of future KiPs. As part of the proCollab research project, this thesis addresses advanced concepts to support the task list lifecycle. For this purpose, existing lifecycle concepts are adapted and improved in particular. To allow an adequate comparison of task lists, an approach for a similarity analysis, on which the advanced concepts are based, is proposed first. As it is not always possible to create a suitable task list in advance, an approach for the automatic generation of a task list template from completed task list instances is presented. Furthermore, an approach for optimizing existing task list templates by incorporating the most frequent changes applied to task lists in use is explained. An additional approach for analyzing and identifying nested insert operations is proposed to extend and improve the optimization of existing task list templates. The presented concepts are together implemented in the current proCollab proof-of-concept prototype to demonstrate their feasibility and applicability. Therefore, various services and a central REST interface as well as a comprehensive test framework are implemented