Applied knowledge management : a set of well-tried tools

For almost 20 years, Knowledge Management projects hit various domains. This paper focuses on selected tools now of general practice and becoming popular among the practitioners. Originally out of the Information Science labs, the tools introduced here have been proved tested efficient and reliable after hundreds of real projects, no matter what type of industry and domain use them. This paper aims to briefly describe a set of four well-tried Knowledge Management tools allowing practitioners to analyse and structure, describe and represent, share and store, teach and transmit knowledge. This now common practice should open the path to new models for the Knowledge Economy. Dealing with complexity becomes easier as well as putting the Information system at the crossing of the interactive information flows instead of keeping it out of reach of a majority of knowledge workers. Due to the massive retirement of the baby boomers, a large loss of workforce challenges the companies for the first time in history. How to evaluate and pass to the next generation its core business of knowledge is thus of critical importance. This paper reminds that Knowledge Management is no longer a solely academic issue since tools of the next generation are now available, beefing up the growing domain of the knowledge economy.E-learning, Intranets, Knowledge economy, Knowledge management

Specification of vertical semantic consistency rules of UML class diagram refinement using logical approach

Unified Modelling Language (UML) is the most popular modelling language use for software design in software development industries with a class diagram being the most frequently use diagram. Despite the popularity of UML, it is being affected by inconsistency problems of its diagrams at the same or different abstraction levels. Inconsistency in UML is mostly caused by existence of various views on the same system and sometimes leads to potentially conflicting system specifications. In general, syntactic consistency can be automatically checked and therefore is supported by current UML Computer-aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools. Semantic consistency problems, unlike syntactic consistency problems, there exists no specific method for specifying semantic consistency rules and constraints. Therefore, this research has specified twenty-four abstraction rules of class‟s relation semantic among any three related classes of a refined class diagram to semantically equivalent relations of two of the classes using a logical approach. This research has also formalized three vertical semantic consistency rules of a class diagram refinement identified by previous researchers using a logical approach and a set of formalized abstraction rules. The results were successfully evaluated using hotel management system and passenger list system case studies and were found to be reliable and efficient

Final report: refugee oral health sector capacity building project

This report develops new resources that support the Victorian public oral health sector\u27s clients of refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds.Summary: The first key outcome of the project was the development of new resources that support the Victorian public oral health sector. A Model of Care, two Factsheets on identifying and working with clients of refugee and asylum seeker background, and a central resource repository were developed by the Project Worker with assistance from the Project Advisory Group. The Model of Care and the complementary Factsheets were designed to support services to implement Priority Access and Fee Exemption policies. Further, the proposed Model of Care places a focus on oral health education which assists to minimise late-stage and costly interventions, consistent with developments in relation to Minimal Intervention Dentistry (MID). The Model of Care encourages dental staff to observe and assess clients for clinical and social risks that may impact on the client’s oral health care and/or client ability to renegotiate complex appointment systems for follow up care; and, based on this assessment, to set up recall for clients who show high oral health risk (including any identified clinical and social risks). The Model of Care also aims to provide services with guidance to assist in ascertaining when those of refugee background can be assessed as no longer requiring Priority Access. The Model of Care has been positively received by practitioners and services, however needs to be incorporated into policy and guidelines in order to support its implementation.In addition to the Model of Care and Factsheets, a collection of refugee oral health literature and resources have been collated into a repository on the Victorian Refugee Health Network website www.refugeehealthnetwork.org.au. The project identified a need for additional pictorial, translated and interactive web-based oral health information to be developed, especially on the topic of health education for people of refugee backgrounds. Oral hygiene maintenance, how to navigate the oral health care system, and what to expect before and after a dental treatment are suggested themes.Another key output was the development, trialling and evaluation of the Refuge Oral Health Targeted Education Program (TEP) – a professional development curriculum for oral health service staff. Evaluation of the TEP showed that staff who participated in the program demonstrated an increase in (a) knowledge, (b) confidence and (c) understanding of practice in working with clients of refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds.There is a high demand for oral health training and evidence from this project shows that the TEP is not only informative, but also effective in changing perception and practice in oral health service delivery. The TEP should be implemented across Victoria in services responding to high numbers of refugee and asylum seeker clients. While there is a need to make the TEP widely available, this also has resource implications and it is suggested that these could be partially addressed by making some of the learning modules available online.The project also identified the need for regional or statewide forum(s) to promote the findings of the project and promote good practice across services. It will be important to continue to develop opportunities for dental professionals, researchers, government and refugee related services to come together to share clinical expertise, emerging issues, clinical presentations, case studies and service developments, specific to working with clients or refugee and asylum seeker background.A lack of formalised pathways between dental, intake, Refugee Health Nurses and settlement services was highlighted during the TEP as an area for further development, and for consideration in other services.Finally, this project highlighted significant gaps in Australian research in relation to the following areas: the oral health status of new and recently arrived refugee background populations (noting changing demographics now and in the future); evidence regarding approaches to providing better access, appropriate clinical care and addressing oral health literacy for refugee background population (including oral health promotion and education); and in new and emerging approaches such as Minimal Intervention Dentistry (MID). The recommendations below provide next steps in implementation in the areas of policy, referral pathways, professional and organisation development, resources and research.Authored by: Thuy Nguyen, Sue Casey, May Maloney & Stephanie Rich on behalf of the Project Advisory Grou

Преглед на технологични решения за управление на знания

The present paper focuses on a new managerial discipline emerging in the last few years of the 20th century. At the beginning are introduced some basic concepts used in the theory and practice of Knowledge Management, and are presented the benefits for utilization of Knowledge management. The main emphasis of the paper is on the technological solutions applied in the organizations at different stages of the knowledge management life cycle, whereas a summary is made of the types of technologies described in the theory and practice. Finally, are presented survey data on the real application of various knowledge management technologies in the organization

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

University Knowledge Management Tool for Academic Research Activity Evaluation

The implementation of an efficient university knowledge management system involves the de-velopment of several software tools that assist the decision making process for the three main activities of a university: teaching, research, and management. Artificial intelligence provides a variety of techniques that can be used by such tools: machine learning, data mining, text mining, knowledge based systems, expert systems, case-based reasoning, decision support systems, intelligent agents etc. In this paper it is proposed a generic structure of a university knowledge management system, and it is presented an expert system, ACDI_UPG, developed for academic research activity evaluation, that can be used as a decision support tool by the university knowledge management system for planning future research activities according to the main objectives of the university and of the national / international academic research funding organizations.University Knowledge Management, Research Activity Evaluation, Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems, Decision Support System

Information Society, Work and the Generation of New Forms of Social Exclusion (SOWING): National Report (Portugal)

The choice over the Portuguese case studies was based on the sample constructed for the application of the firm questionnaires, during the second year of the SOWING project, 1999. This sample was fulfilled of firms among several activity sectors: textile, manufacturing, electronics, transports and software industry, based on NACE – codes (2 – digit level). Thus, we agreed to include in a new database the remaining questionnaires and construct a sample with 113 observations. Concerning the organisational change we make a distinction of three categories of change. First we analyse changes taking place at the inter-firm level (outsourcing, subcontracting, geographic relocation), followed by changes at the organisational level (deconcentration/decentralisation, reduction of hierarchical levels, introduction of cost and profit centres). The third kind of changes analysed will be those taking place at the workplace level (job enlargement/enrichment, changing character of work, work load). The Portuguese studied companies presents a relative uniform pattern considering the variables social competencies, practical knowledge, responsibility and specialized professional qualifications.industry; information technologies; qualification; organisation; work

Effective Virtual Teams for New Product Development

At present, the existing literature shows that the factors which influence the effectiveness of virtual teams for new product development are still ambiguous. To address this problem, a research design was developed, which includes detailed literature review, preliminary model and field survey. From literature review, the factors which influence the effectiveness of virtual teams are identified and these factors are modified using a field survey. The relationship between knowledge workers (people), process and technology in virtual teams is explored in this study. The results of the study suggest that technology and process are tightly correlated and need to be considered early in virtual teams. The use of software as a service, web solution, report generator and tracking system should be incorporated for effectiveness virtual teams

Generational Perceptions of Productive/Unproductive Information Received from Management through Different Communication Channels

This exploratory study identified generational preferences for receiving information from management through different communication channels and determined if age predicted productivity for productive and unproductive information received through different communication channels. This is the first study to empirically examine the relationship between age cohorts, communication channel preferences, information categories, and productivity. Sample participants worked as Extension agents at a major land-grant university. The four generations represented in the sample utilized multiple communication channels and were geographically dispersed throughout the state. The survey was administered electronically and completed by 204 (74%) of the eligible 275 employees in the organization. Independent Samples t-tests, General Linear Modeling, ANOVA’s, means analysis and linear regressions were employed to analyze the data to test the hypotheses. Regarding channel preference, the findings determined that face-to-face communication was preferred by both generations for receiving private and confidential information and for training. Media was preferred by both generations for routine and procedural and time-sensitive information. Lastly, the analysis revealed that written documents were the preferred method of both generational cohorts for compensation and benefits. Regarding productivity, the findings determined that age predicted a perceived increase in productivity tasks for production information received face-to-face from management, but did not predict a perceived increase in productivity tasks for the other communication channels. Both generational cohorts perceived productive information received face-to-face from management to increase morale and decrease stress. The cohorts, however, differed on the increase of trust as a result of receiving productive information face-to-face. Both generational cohorts perceived unproductive information received from management through all communication channels to negatively impact productivity tasks. Finally, both cohorts perceived unproductive information received face-to-face from management to negatively impact morale, trust and stress. Empirical examination of generational workforce issues is relatively new to Human Resources and research is needed to further examine generational perceptions. The study begins to open dialogue that the supposed differences inherent in the multigenerational workforce are not as much a factor of the generation as the information. The development of the new instrument in this study provides a new tool to examine organizations preferences and productivity