Knowledge Reuse Through Electronic Knowledge Repositories: An Empirical Study And Ontological Improvement Effort For The Manufacturing Industry

Knowledge management adoption is growing, and will continue to grow in no small part because of its recent inclusion into the ISO 9001 quality standard. As organizations look towards ways in which to manage their knowledge, the codification of explicit knowledge through Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) and Electronic Knowledge Repositories (EKRs) will undoubtedly gain more interest. An EKR is a form of KMS that emphasizes the codification and storage of organizational expertise for the purposes of Knowledge Reuse (KRU). Unfortunately, the factors surrounding KRU are not well understood. While previous studies have viewed EKR usage from a narrow perspective, a broader and interconnected view of KRU via EKRs has yet to emerge. Additionally, while there have been numerous benefits linked to EKRs, there are still issues that limit their utility, particularly in the manufacturing arena where information complexity and geography have made it increasingly difficult to share knowledge. Hence, this research employed a two pronged approach. First, using a multi-theoretical perspective to model KRU via EKRs, a quantitative study was conducted and identified several socio-technical factors that predicted greater KRU. These factors had not been previously modeled within the context of KRU via EKRs, and hence add to both the theoretical and practical implications of the domain. Additionally, the KRU construct was also tied to a back end resulting outcome view that was informed by the Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM). Through this view, the research quantitatively validated that KRU not only predicted greater performance, but also impacted greater knowledge sharing and continuance of use. This ancillary benefit helps to reinforce the importance of EKRs in that additional gains are manifested along with the core component of KRU. Second, the research extended the capability of manufacturing EKRs by developing a holistic design and process based ontology that connects key concepts within these domains to provide an overall interconnected view. Additionally, to ensure the relevance of the ontology, a mature and globally recognized industry standard was used as the basis to develop it. The ontology was then formalized and tested via Semantic Web tools: Protege, RDF, and SPARQL. The results demonstrate an improved approach to knowledge recall by providing rich and accurate query returns. The ability to use standalone and federated queries to effectively cull the complexity of this interconnected domain is an enhancement to keyword based and traditional relational database approaches. Additionally, to assist with greater industry adoption a systematic and constructive approach for developing and operationalizing the ontology is provided. Finally, in the spirit of the program in which this dissertation is presented, rounding out the research effort are broader organizational management recommendations for overall knowledge management. Referencing industry targeted literature and syncing them with findings from these two research efforts, several pragmatic and sequentially logical approaches to knowledge management are offered

Context Aware Computing for The Internet of Things: A Survey

As we are moving towards the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of sensors deployed around the world is growing at a rapid pace. Market research has shown a significant growth of sensor deployments over the past decade and has predicted a significant increment of the growth rate in the future. These sensors continuously generate enormous amounts of data. However, in order to add value to raw sensor data we need to understand it. Collection, modelling, reasoning, and distribution of context in relation to sensor data plays critical role in this challenge. Context-aware computing has proven to be successful in understanding sensor data. In this paper, we survey context awareness from an IoT perspective. We present the necessary background by introducing the IoT paradigm and context-aware fundamentals at the beginning. Then we provide an in-depth analysis of context life cycle. We evaluate a subset of projects (50) which represent the majority of research and commercial solutions proposed in the field of context-aware computing conducted over the last decade (2001-2011) based on our own taxonomy. Finally, based on our evaluation, we highlight the lessons to be learnt from the past and some possible directions for future research. The survey addresses a broad range of techniques, methods, models, functionalities, systems, applications, and middleware solutions related to context awareness and IoT. Our goal is not only to analyse, compare and consolidate past research work but also to appreciate their findings and discuss their applicability towards the IoT.Comment: IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials Journal, 201

A genealogy of the whole child

This research is an investigation into how the essentially ‘progressive’ pedagogical construct of the whole child became a neoliberal policy subject. In short, it is a presentation of the production/ or productions of the whole child in the neoliberal policy process. Specifically, it is focused on policies of well-being and character from the time of New Labour to the 2014 Conservative government. During the course of the research, three different yet thoroughly connected productions of the whole child have emerged: the whole child constituted in policy document definitions through psy- scientific discourses; the whole child constituted through the processes and practices of a neoliberal education system and the whole child constituted through classroom practices of well-being and character programmes. They occur at different stages of the policy process and in different sites yet are inseparable. Together they constitute a kind of anatomy of the whole child in neoliberal education policy. I have found it helpful to employ Foucault’s concept of the dispositif to both explore and connect the notion of the whole child and neoliberalism. I have understood those three articulations from the perspective of his constructs of bio power, governmentality and technologies of the self. My research then suggests that this ‘whole child’ of education policy represents and facilitates an increasingly systematic extension of neoliberal governance into/through the emotional and moral ‘life’ of the child. The whole child functions as a bio political or etho political subject that is a critical and developing constituent part of the neoliberal dispositif

The Impact of Business Process Management Values on Enterprise Content Management Workflow Systems Performance

Improving an enterprise’s operations, services, policies and rules using information systems and business process management is a continuance decision-makers role. This research explores how business process management values impact on enterprise content management (ECM) workflow system performance and how business process management values can be incorporated as part of a measurement model for improving ECM workflow system performance to achieve business objectives and organisational goals. The research focuses on establishing a set of variables for the measurement of CERT business process management values and further explores the impact of these CERT values on ECM workflow system performance. The CERT values are customer orientation (C), excellence (E), responsibility (R) and teamwork (T). These values can be applied using the three round structure of the Delphi method to validate key performance indicators, which are used to implement a performance measurement and management framework in order to measure workflow information system performance. Through this process, the current ECM workflow system performance (i.e. “Now” situation) and the desired future system performance (i.e. “Preferred” situation) can be described using a performance profile development model based on the concepts and variables of CERT values. This thesis contributes to business practice studies, information systems literature and the informatics body of knowledge in several ways: First, it explains how CERT values can support decision-making by finding their impact on ECM workflow systems performance. Second, it formulates a performance profile development model, which is a decision-making process to measure ECM workflow systems performance. Third, it shows how to implement the research strategic procedures using Delphi’s rounds. Fourth, it demonstrates the quality of mixed methods as the research choice for this type of information systems enquiry. The research promotes the use of the Delphi method for the implementation of such decision-making processes, the application of the performance profile development model for scientific decision studies and the analysis of the relationships between variables to recognise other key performance indicators within business process management and the performance measurement and management research contexts

Configuration and Change Maturity Optimization - The Case of Complex Engineering Environments

Im derzeitigen globalen Wettbewerbsmarkt, in dem Unternehmen durch die Bereitstellung anspruchsvoller, aber kundenorientierter Lösungen einen höheren Marktanteil erreichen, ist das Management und der Schutz von Produktinformationen über verschiedene Phasen seines Lebenszyklus (von der Erfassung der Kundenanforderungen bis hin zum Prototyping und Start) von bedeutende Bedeutung. Die Disziplin, die Sicherheit für das Produktinformationsmanagement bietet, ist das Konfigurationsmanagement und erfordert je nach Umfang und Komplexität der Anwendungsumgebung mehrere Aktivitäten und Maßnahmen, die ordnungsgemäß implementiert werden müssen. Diese Arbeit zielt darauf ab, einen Optimierungsrahmen für die Industrie zur Verfügung zu stellen, um ihre Kompetenz in dieser Disziplin zu bewerten und ihre Prozesse zu stärken und somit einen Wettbewerbsvorteil unter ihren Konkurrenten zu erlangen. Dieses Ziel wurde erreicht, indem zuerst die kritischen Erfolgsfaktoren des Configuration Managements identifiziert und ein Reifegrad-Modell entwickelt wurde, das die Basisreife von Organisationen im Hinblick auf ihre Konfigurationsmanagementbemühungen bewertet und einen Fahrplan für weitere Verbesserungen liefert. Das entwickelte Reifegradmodell wurde dann durch eine branchenübergreifende Bewertung validiert und die Ergebnisse legten die Grundlage für die Identifizierung des aktuellen Reifegrads in verschiedenen Branchen, Möglichkeiten zur Verbesserung der Verwendbarkeit des Reifegradmodells für Evaluierungszwecke sowie die möglichen Forschungsmöglichkeiten für Lösungen die Verbesserungen in den Prozessfähigkeiten der Disziplin bieten. Das Hauptpotenzial für die weitere Entwicklung des Modells wurde Durch das Fehlen quantitativer Schlüsselleistungsindikatoren (KPIs) identifiziert, und es wurde durch Identifizierung relevanter KPIs, die eine quantitative Messung der Reife von Organisationen ermöglichen, adressiert. Gleichzeitig wurde eine Möglichkeit zur Konzeption eines Entscheidungshilfesystems für den Prozess des Änderungsprozesses identifiziert, das historische Kenntnisse früherer Konfigurationsänderungen nutzen kann, um die Entscheidungsträger bei der Analyse ihrer Auswirkungen durch die Einbeziehung mehrerer Variablen zu unterstützen

An Ontological Approach for Organizing a Knowledge Base to Share and Reuse Business Workflow Templates

International audienceBusiness process models have been used in a lot of enterprise applications. Along with their popularity, the problem of how to create them correctly in terms of semantics and syntax while effectively promoting the reuse of suitable parts of existing models is increasingly interest. This paper describes how to organize a knowledge base to facilitate the shareability and reusability of business workflow templates. We first introduce a repository consisting of business workflow templates which are well-checked at the syntactic and semantic level. An organizational mechanism for control flow-based business workflow templates is therefore provided to ensure an effective search of templates. We then propose a process for developing workflow templates. Thereby for each use case, users can select and modify suitable workflow templates from the knowledge base

Information management in work organization domain in network organizations

Tese de mestrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Re-examining and re-conceptualising enterprise search and discovery capability: towards a model for the factors and generative mechanisms for search task outcomes.

Many organizations are trying to re-create the Google experience, to find and exploit their own corporate information. However, there is evidence that finding information in the workplace using search engine technology has remained difficult, with socio-technical elements largely neglected in the literature. Explication of the factors and generative mechanisms (ultimate causes) to effective search task outcomes (user satisfaction, search task performance and serendipitous encountering) may provide a first step in making improvements. A transdisciplinary (holistic) lens was applied to Enterprise Search and Discovery capability, combining critical realism and activity theory with complexity theories to one of the worlds largest corporations. Data collection included an in-situ exploratory search experiment with 26 participants, focus groups with 53 participants and interviews with 87 business professionals. Thousands of user feedback comments and search transactions were analysed. Transferability of findings was assessed through interviews with eight industry informants and ten organizations from a range of industries. A wide range of informational needs were identified for search filters, including a need to be intrigued. Search term word co-occurrence algorithms facilitated serendipity to a greater extent than existing methods deployed in the organization surveyed. No association was found between user satisfaction (or self assessed search expertise) with search task performance and overall performance was poor, although most participants had been satisfied with their performance. Eighteen factors were identified that influence search task outcomes ranging from user and task factors, informational and technological artefacts, through to a wide range of organizational norms. Modality Theory (Cybersearch culture, Simplicity and Loss Aversion bias) was developed to explain the study observations. This proposes that at all organizational levels there are tendencies for reductionist (unimodal) mind-sets towards search capability leading to fixes that fail. The factors and mechanisms were identified in other industry organizations suggesting some theory generalizability. This is the first socio-technical analysis of Enterprise Search and Discovery capability. The findings challenge existing orthodoxy, such as the criticality of search literacy (agency) which has been neglected in the practitioner literature in favour of structure. The resulting multifactorial causal model and strategic framework for improvement present opportunities to update existing academic models in the IR, LIS and IS literature, such as the DeLone and McLean model for information system success. There are encouraging signs that Modality Theory may enable a reconfiguration of organizational mind-sets that could transform search task outcomes and ultimately business performance

Knowledge technologies process and cultures - improving information and knowledge sharing at the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA)

Over the last few years the ASA determined KM as a priority to assist with reducing knowledge loss, realising information assets and reducing work duplication by attempting to implement IKM tools and strategies. This research employed a pragmatic viewpoint, using a mix of both quantitative and qualitative methods to check reliability, to ensure validity while undertaking the task of implementing the IKM tools. Using a case study strategy and action research was justified, as to be pragmatic the researcher needed to understand the extent of the problem within a specified context. The research discussed in this thesis, provides a new framework for implementing KM tools; focusing on the NSO category, which the case study organisation falls into. The literature agrees enlisting influential members onto the project is vital for success; however, the findings suggested that success was not only tied to this buy-in alone, but also to the organisation s ability to retain these members for the duration of the project. The research proposed the use of a newly developed tool within the new framework, as an approach to reduce the time it takes to undertake traditional social network analysis of the organisation, as it became clear that there was a need for a method of producing updated results of the SNA, which would span the length of long projects within organisations with significantly high staff turn-over rates. Privacy was given as a factor to consider the in literature; however, the findings from this study indicated that a majority of the participants were comfortable with the system. Email knowledge extraction, and email social network systems are not new concepts, however this research presents EKESNA; a novel tool that combines both concepts in a way that allows for the continuous discovery, visualisation, and analysis of knowledge networks around specified topics of interest within an organisation; linking conversations to specific expert knowledge. EKESNA s continuous discovery of the organisation s knowledge network affords members up-to-date data to inform business process reengineering. This is a potentially ground breaking new tool that has the possibility of transforming the KM landscape in NSOs as well as a whole range of other kinds of enterprises