Lessons learned: structuring knowledge codification and abstraction to provide meaningful information for learning

Purpose – To increase the spread and reuse of lessons learned (LLs), the purpose of this paper is to develop a standardised information structure to facilitate concise capture of the critical elements needed to engage secondary learners and help them apply lessons to their contexts. Design/methodology/approach – Three workshops with industry practitioners, an analysis of over 60 actual lessons from private and public sector organisations and seven practitioner interviews provided evidence of actual practice. Design science was used to develop a repeatable/consistent information model of LL content/structure. Workshop analysis and theory provided the coding template. Situation theory and normative analysis were used to define the knowledge and rule logic to standardise fields. Findings – Comparing evidence from practice against theoretical prescriptions in the literature highlighted important enhancements to the standard LL model. These were a consistent/concise rule and context structure, appropriate emotional language, reuse and control criteria to ensure lessons were transferrable and reusable in new situations. Research limitations/implications – Findings are based on a limited sample. Long-term benefits of standardisation and use need further research. A larger sample/longitudinal usage study is planned. Practical implications – The implementation of the LL structure was well-received in one government user site and other industry user sites are pending. Practitioners validated the design logic for improving capture and reuse of lessons to render themeasily translatable to a new learner’s context. Originality/value – The new LL structure is uniquely grounded in user needs, developed from existing best practice and is an original application of normative and situation theory to provide consistent rule logic for context/content structure

Using ontologies to support and critique decisions

Supporting decision making in the working environment has long being pursued by practitioners across a variety of fields, ranging from sociology and operational research to cognitive and computer scientists. A number of computer-supported systems and various technologies have been used over the years, but as we move into more global and flexible organisational structures, new technologies and challenges arise. In this paper, I argue for an ontology-based solution and present some of the early prototypes we have been developing, assess their impact on the decision making process and elaborate on the costs involved

Layered evaluation of interactive adaptive systems : framework and formative methods

Peer reviewedPostprin

Exploring Design Principles for Human-Machine Symbiosis: Insights from Constructing an Air Transportation Logistics Artifact

This paper reports the findings of a proactive design science research project involving the construction, evaluation, and organizational introduction of an information technology (IT) artifact in the context of air transportation logistics. Drawing on our insights from instantiating an IT artifact and embedding it into the organization of a major provider of unit load device management for airlines, we explore the idea that IS-driven automation in digitalizing environments is more limited by socio-economic factors than digital-technological capabilities. Both our IT artifact and the abstracted design principles we generated through heuristic theorizing (HT) are novel, enhancing the information system (IS) design knowledge base of human-machine symbiosis and IT artifacts. Overall, our findings contribute to a better understanding of how to design human-machine symbiosis in information systems

Identifying the science and technology dimensions of emerging public policy issues through horizon scanning

Public policy requires public support, which in turn implies a need to enable the public not just to understand policy but also to be engaged in its development. Where complex science and technology issues are involved in policy making, this takes time, so it is important to identify emerging issues of this type and prepare engagement plans. In our horizon scanning exercise, we used a modified Delphi technique [1]. A wide group of people with interests in the science and policy interface (drawn from policy makers, policy adviser, practitioners, the private sector and academics) elicited a long list of emergent policy issues in which science and technology would feature strongly and which would also necessitate public engagement as policies are developed. This was then refined to a short list of top priorities for policy makers. Thirty issues were identified within broad areas of business and technology; energy and environment; government, politics and education; health, healthcare, population and aging; information, communication, infrastructure and transport; and public safety and national security.Public policy requires public support, which in turn implies a need to enable the public not just to understand policy but also to be engaged in its development. Where complex science and technology issues are involved in policy making, this takes time, so it is important to identify emerging issues of this type and prepare engagement plans. In our horizon scanning exercise, we used a modified Delphi technique [1]. A wide group of people with interests in the science and policy interface (drawn from policy makers, policy adviser, practitioners, the private sector and academics) elicited a long list of emergent policy issues in which science and technology would feature strongly and which would also necessitate public engagement as policies are developed. This was then refined to a short list of top priorities for policy makers. Thirty issues were identified within broad areas of business and technology; energy and environment; government, politics and education; health, healthcare, population and aging; information, communication, infrastructure and transport; and public safety and national security

Proceedings of the ECCS 2005 satellite workshop: embracing complexity in design - Paris 17 November 2005

Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr). Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr)

Data integration through service-based mediation for web-enabled information systems

The Web and its underlying platform technologies have often been used to integrate existing software and information systems. Traditional techniques for data representation and transformations between documents are not sufficient to support a flexible and maintainable data integration solution that meets the requirements of modern complex Web-enabled software and information systems. The difficulty arises from the high degree of complexity of data structures, for example in business and technology applications, and from the constant change of data and its representation. In the Web context, where the Web platform is used to integrate different organisations or software systems, additionally the problem of heterogeneity arises. We introduce a specific data integration solution for Web applications such as Web-enabled information systems. Our contribution is an integration technology framework for Web-enabled information systems comprising, firstly, a data integration technique based on the declarative specification of transformation rules and the construction of connectors that handle the integration and, secondly, a mediator architecture based on information services and the constructed connectors to handle the integration process

ON THE PLAUSIBILITY AND SCOPE OF EXPERT SYSTEMS IN MANAGEMENT

Over the last decade there have been several efforts at building knowledge based "expert systemsâ, mostly in the scientific and medical arenas. Despite the fact that almost all such systems are in their experimental stages, designers are optimistic about their eventual success. In the last few years, there have been many references to the possibility of expert systems in the management literature. However, what is lacking is a clear theoretical perspective on how various management problems differ in nature from problems in other domains, and the implications of these differences for knowledge based decision support systems for management. In this paper, I examine some of these differences, what they suggest in terms of the functionality that a computer based system must have in order to support organizational decision making, and the scope of such a system as a decision aid. The discussion is grounded in the context of a computer based system called PLANET that exhibits some of the desired functionality.Information Systems Working Papers Serie