The design and evaluation of EKE, a semi-automated email knowledge extraction tool

This paper presents an approach to locating experts within organisations through the use of the indispensable communication medium and source of information, email. The approach was realised through the email expert locator architecture developed by the authors, which uses email content in the modelling of individuals' expertise profiles. The approach has been applied to a real-world application, EKE, and evaluated using focus group sessions and system trials. In this work, the authors report the findings obtained from the focus groups sessions. The aim of the sessions was to obtain information about the participants' perceptions, opinions, underlying attitudes, and recommendations with regard to the notion of exploiting email content for expertise profiling. The paper provides a review of the various approaches to expertise location that have been developed and highlights the end-users' perspectives on the usability and functionality of EKE and the socio-ethical challenges raised by its adoption from an industrial perspective. © 2012 Operational Research Society. All rights reserved

Mining email to leverage knowledge networks in organizations

There is nothing new about the notion that in today‟s knowledge driven economy, knowledge is the key strategic asset for competitive advantage in an organization. Also, we have learned that knowledge is residing in the organization‟s informal network. Hence, to leverage business performance from a knowledge management perspective, focus should be on the informal network. A means to analyze and develop the informal network is by applying Social Network Analysis (SNA). By capturing network data in an organization, bottlenecks in knowledge processes can be identified and managed. But where network data can easily be captured by means of a survey in small organizations, in larger organizations this process is too complex and time-intensive. Mining e-mail data is more and more regarded as a suitable alternative as it automates the data capturing process and enables longitudinal research possibilities. An increasing amount of tools for mining e-mail data into social networks is available, but the question remains to what extent these tools are also capable of conducting knowledge network analysis: the analysis of networks from a knowledge perspective. It is argued that in order to perform knowledge network analysis, a tool is required that is capable of analyzing both the header data and the body data of e-mail messages. In this paper two e-mail mining tools are elaborated. One focuses on the analysis of e-mail header data and the other focuses on the analysis of e-mail body data. Both tools are embedded in their theoretical background and compared to other e-mail mining tools that address e-mail header data or e-mail body data. The aim of this paper is two-fold. The paper primarily aims at providing a detailed discussion of both tools. Continuing, from the in-depth review, the integration of both tools is proposed, concluding towards a single new tool that is capable of analyzing both e-mail header and body data. It is argued how this new tool nurtures the application of knowledge network analysis

The design and evaluation of EKE, a semi-automated email knowledge extraction tool

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Knowledge Management Research and Practice. The definitive publisher-authenticated version, TEDMORI, S. and JACKSON, T., 2012. The design and evaluation of EKE, a semi-automated email knowledge extraction tool. Knowledge Management Research and Practice, 10 (1), pp. 79 - 88 is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/kmrp.2011.40This paper presents an approach to locating experts within organisations through the use of the indispensable communication medium and source of information, email. The approach was realised through the email expert locator architecture developed by the authors, which uses email content in the modelling of individuals' expertise profiles. The approach has been applied to a real-world application, EKE, and evaluated using focus group sessions and system trials. In this work, the authors report the findings obtained from the focus groups sessions. The aim of the sessions was to obtain information about the participants' perceptions, opinions, underlying attitudes, and recommendations with regard to the notion of exploiting email content for expertise profiling. The paper provides a review of the various approaches to expertise location that have been developed and highlights the end-users' perspectives on the usability and functionality of EKE and the socio-ethical challenges raised by its adoption from an industrial perspective. © 2012 Operational Research Society. All rights reserved

Exploiting email : extracting knowledge to support knowledge sharing

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Socio-ethical issues for expertise location from electronic mail

Knowledge workers frequently lack sufficient expertise to perform work effectively. This paper describes a recently developed expertise locator system based on automated key-phrase identification of experts from electronic mail (e-mail) messages. The paper provides an analysis of the key socio-ethical challenges involved in the implementation and use of the e-mail expertise locator system. Findings include a set of complex socio-ethical challenges, and their managerial and theoretical implications are discussed. The paper highlights possible sensitivities of employees with respect to their potential identification by the system as domain experts. It also highlights the potential for employee misuse of e-mail expertise locator systems, which must be carefully managed to reduce the risks involved.<br /

Assessing the value of an E-mail knowledge extraction system

This paper reviews an approach to locating knowledge holders within organizations through the use of a well-established communication medium, E-mail. The approach has been used to develop the E-mail knowledge extraction (EKE) tool. EKE was then evaluated at an academic institution in the United Kingdom. This study represents the first effort to validate the viability of the E-mail medium as a source of knowledge profiling data, to be used for finding employees who possess the required knowledge. It also looks at the socio–ethical challenges associated with EKE’s adoption. The overall evaluation of EKE found it to be useful, interesting, easy and intuitive to use and of potential benefit to employees within organizations

Locating knowledge sources through keyphrase extraction

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