Process Support for Cooperative Work on the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is becoming a dominating factor in information technology. Consequently, computer supported cooperative work on the Web has recently drawn a lot of attention. “Process Support for Cooperative Work” (PSCW) is a Web based system supporting both structured and unstructured forms of cooperation. It is a combination of the “Basic Support for Cooperative Work” (BSCW) shared workspace system and the Merlin Process Support Environment. The current PSCW prototype offers a loose connection, in effect extending BSCW with a gateway to Merlin. With this prototype we have successfully addressed the technical issues involved; further integration of functionality should not pose any real problems. We focus on the technical side of the PSCW system, which gives a good insight into the issues that have to be addressed generally in the construction of Web based groupware

The Framework of Enterprise Information Processing Network for Knowledge Discovery and Sharing

The challenges of the global marketplace are increasingly forcing today\u27s process-centered organizations to utilize the knowledge, capabilities, and resources to be found within their information processing networks. The issue of whether or not companies should exploit their intangible knowledge assets is far more critical than their ability to invest and manage their existing physical assets. Under this paradigm shift, information-oriented productivity depends on the sharing of knowledge and skills among workers, so that enterprise strategies can be driven by the collective intelligence and competence of the group to face today’s business challenges and enable organizational learning. Management of organizational knowledge to create business values and competitive advantages is critical towards the organizational development. This paper focuses on the transformation of an enterprise information-processing network into a knowledge network for supply chain co-evolution. The ultimate goal is to develop a technological framework for a knowledge network that brings people, information, technologies, business processes, and organizational strategies together to better utilize knowledge in e-business. A knowledge network is introduced to enhance collaboration, encourage innovation, boost productivity, achieve adaptivity, and increase the information system efficiency. In tomorrow’s enterprises, knowledge will be the key to release creative energies that will inspire enormous innovations and great discoveries

Intelligent Decision Support Systems- A Framework

Information technology applications that support decision-making processes and problem- solving activities have thrived and evolved over the past few decades. This evolution led to many different types of Decision Support System (DSS) including Intelligent Decision Support System (IDSS). IDSS include domain knowledge, modeling, and analysis systems to provide users the capability of intelligent assistance which significantly improves the quality of decision making. IDSS includes knowledge management component which stores and manages a new class of emerging AI tools such as machine learning and case-based reasoning and learning. These tools can extract knowledge from previous data and decisions which give DSS capability to support repetitive, complex real-time decision making.  This paper attempts to assess the role of IDSS in decision making. First, it explores the definitions and understanding of DSS and IDSS. Second, this paper illustrates a framework of IDSS along with various tools and technologies that support it. Keywords: Decision Support Systems, Data Warehouse, ETL, Data Mining, OLAP, Groupware, KDD, IDS

Genre Taxonomy: A Knowledge Repository of Communicative Actions

In this paper, we propose a genre taxonomy as a knowledge repository of communicative structures or "typified actions" enacted by organizational members. The Genre taxonomy aims at helping people to make sense of diverse types of communicative actions, and has three features to achieve this objective. First, the genre taxonomy represents the elements of both genres and genre systems, sequences of interrelated genres, as embedded in a social context considering the "5W1H" questions (Why, What, Who/Whom, When, Where, and How). In other words, the genre taxonomy represents the elements of both genres and genre systems in terms of purpose, contents, participants, timing of use, place of communicative action, and form including media, structuring devices and linguistic elements. Second, the genre taxonomy represents both widely recognized genres such as a report and specific genres such as a technical report used in a specific company, because the difference between a widely recognized genre and a specific variant based on the more general genre sheds light on the context of genre use. Third, the genre taxonomy represents use and evolution of genre over time to help people to understand how a genre is relevant to a community where the genre is enacted and changed. We have constructed a prototype of such a genre taxonomy using the Process Handbook, a process knowledge repository developed at MIT. We have included both widely recognized genres such as the memo and specific genres such as those used in the Process Handbook itself. We suggest that this genre taxonomy may be useful in the innovation of new document templates or methods for communication because it helps to clarify different possible uses of similar genres and explicates how genres play a coordination role among people and between people and their tasks.

REVIEW OF TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENTi

The present paper focuses on Knowledge Management (KM) as a new managerial discipline emerging in the last few years of the 20th century. The main emphasis of the paper is on the technological solutions applied in the organizations at different stages of the KM life cycle. It makes a classification of the types of technologies described in the theory and practice based on the main KM processes. Finally, are presented survey data on the real application of various knowledge management technologies in the organizations

Knowledge Management and Churchman\u27s Inquirers: Evidence of Supporting Research

This paper examines current knowledge management research with respect to Churchman\u27s (1971) inquiring systems. Given that two of the most important constructs in knowledge management are knowledge creation and organizational learning, these systems should reflect the characteristics of inquiring systems as defined by Churchman (1971) and subsequently conceptualized by Mason and Mitroff (1973) and Hall, Paradice, and Courtney (2003), and should support inquiring organizations as conceptualized by Courtney, Croasdell, and Paradice (1998). This paper presents a case for using Churchman’s inquiring systems as a lens through which to view knowledge management research and examines extant research for areas appropriate for such a framework. Understanding Churchman’s inquirers and their characteristics may be critical to the direction and focus of future knowledge management research

A methodology for the 'live' capture and reuse of project knowledge in construction

The importance of capturing and sharing useful knowledge from construction projects has been recognised by the construction industry. However, issues such as the loss of important insights due to the time lapse in capturing the knowledge, the need for sharing the knowledge captured as soon as possible in order to maximise the benefits brought about by reusing the knowledge, and the need to share the knowledge before the opportunities for reusing the knowledge diminish have not been adequately addressed. To address this, it is crucial for knowledge to be captured as soon as possible once it is created or identified (i.e. 'live') in a collaborative environment, and presented in a format that will facilitate its reuse during and after the project. This research was aimed at developing a methodology that facilitates the `live' capture and reuse of project knowledge in construction. An extensive literature review was first conducted on the concept of knowledge management and the current practices for managing project knowledge. Subsequently, case studies involving six companies were carried out to investigate the shortcomings of current practice and the end-user requirements for the capture and reuse of project knowledge. These requirements informed the development of the methodology for `live' capture and reuse of project knowledge. The Web IS Development Methodology (Avison and Fitzgerald, 2003) employing ASP. NET 2.0 was adopted to encapsulate the methodology into a Web-based prototype application. The evaluation of the prototype revealed that the methodology can enable project knowledge to be captured and shared `live' across different organisations without significant additional workload and costs. It is concluded that the `live' capture and reuse of project knowledge in construction is important in preventing knowledge loss and helping to harness the project knowledge captured. A combination of both KM technologies and techniques is essential for the effective management of tacit and explicit knowledge. The prototype application developed can facilitate the `live' capture and reuse of project knowledge as shown by the results of the evaluation. There is scope for enhancing this study by exploring the integration of the prototype application with other information systems, and the use of software agents to automatically locate useful knowledge from the Internet and project extranets. The methodology developed will help construction organisation to leverage their knowledge in a timely way to meet the challenge of today's fast evolving world

A FRAMEWORK TO CLARIFY THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Knowledge management Systems (KMS) are IT applications that manage representations of organizational knowledge. This paper presents a conceptual model of KMS which adapts an artificial intelligence (AI) based view of knowledge. According to this view, knowledge can be defined in terms of agent, action, state, and goal. The conceptual model is intended to help differentiate the role of KMS from that of Information Systems (IS). The knowledge managed by the KMS is intended to enable an agent to choose actions that can be taken to accomplish a goal in the given state. The role of the IS is to make the agent aware of a situation described in terms of states, actions, and goal. The model suggests that whether we classify an IT application as KMS or IS depends on the contents it manages and to increase the effectiveness of KMS, it is often necessary to use IS that complement the KMS. Considering the importance and popularity of KMS in organizations, we believe the clarification of the role of KMS is useful

A case study of effective practices for the management of global software development projects

Global software development has proliferated in recent years because of rapid globalization, development of telecommunication and information technologies, and maturing of the software development processes. This thesis synthesizes available research on the global software development paradigm into an integrated model. The theoretical study analyzes different aspects of dispersion, their effect on traditional group processes of communication, coordination and control, and the recommendations in the literature for addressing some of these issues. The model developed in the theoretical study was then used to perform a detailed case study of a CMM Level 5 software company that specializes in global software development. A comparison of findings from the literature survey with these insights from a practitioner organization was used to draw inferences about how closely the theoretical model follows the real issues faced by industry, the practices and methodologies actually being used, and some areas of concern that available research does not address adequately. This case study revealed overlaps as well as differences between academic research and practice. Recommendations are made to managers of global software projects and areas of future research are identified