Knowledge Management – In Theory and in Practice

MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

D - 10179 Berlin, Annenstr. 22 - VRN 24942NZ

[email protected]

Knowledge Management – In Theory and in Practice

Dr. Irina Stobbe, Berlin

[email protected], www.wiki-gegen-minen.de, www.wiki-against-mines.org

MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Introduction – Who we are

• A group of scientists of DLR, the „German NASA“, and their friends – experts in Marketing, Public Relation, Informatics and Knowledge Management, …

• „We can find water on Mars – why not landmines in affected areas?“• We want to encourage people all over the world

– to learn about, to organise, to develop reliable detecting devices,

– to develop your own social networks

• Lecturer: Irina Stobbe, mathematician, Ph.D. in theoretical mechanics, experience in informatics, private consultant, teacher at the University of Applied Sciences - FHTW - Berlin


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Outline / Memory

• Knowledge Management• What role plays knowledge• Arguments, why organisations do that (expectations)• Topics and framework

• Project in practice: Landmine Detection Technologies Wiki


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Knowledge

• Education is the basis for sustainable development (economical, technical, political, social )

• Development is the basis for welfare

• Most businesses benefit from a higher level of understanding of economy, customers, environment and politics

• Sustainability is possible only by understanding on an advanced level


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Sharing the Knowledge

• Culturally based: common knowledge and knowledge for the sake of domination, e.g.– Parents educate their children– Governmental and religious institutions provide school systems,

colleges, institutes, universities – Enterprises educate their workers (private colleges, institutes,

universities )– Private or common learning


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Knowledge - a disambiguation

• Knowledge is the structured information inside a system of interrelations

– Data has a syntax– Information has a context– Knowledge consists of interrelated

information and interpretation

• Knowledge is the precondition for reasonable and sensible doing/acting

• Perceptions follows knowledge, if the relevance of the information for solving a problem is given.

• Action happens, if you begin to solve the problem

knowledge

information

data

characters

perception,

action


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Knowledge classification

Tacit knowledge, implicit knowledge

• Acquisition of k. happens through experience and practice

• Subconscious or latent knowledge

• Process of cognition is not describable

• Difficult to access

Explicit knowledge

• Exists in a well documented form (mostly in databases or books)

• Formulation in at least one language

• Nameable

Commons Wikipedia, 12/2007


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Knowledge management

• Management theory in organisations: manage the resource „knowledge“

• Understand and control the ways in which knowledge is created, used, shared within organisations

• Objectives: to ensure that the right information is delivered to the right person just in time, in order to take the most appropriate decision. practical approach

.


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Modern topics in research

• Knowledge balance: collect all „debits and credits“ or „assets and liabilities“ as an addition to the balance sheet

• „human capital“• Mostly for Basel II (European credit framework) or the

American credit frameworks.• Challenge: find out the Top-ten key indicators, which

make the organisational knowledge countable.


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Modern topics in research (II)

• Implicit, tacit knowledge: how to gain?• Transfer of tacit knowledge, if there is now awareness• Find out forms and conditions to do that


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Sharing knowledge

• Conversion of internalized tacit knowledge into explicit codified knowledge (SECI)

• Conversion of knowledge of an individual to knowledge of the organisation

•Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. (1995), The Knowledge-Creating Company, New York: Oxford University Press.

Socialisation

Internalisation

Externa-lisation

Combination

Explicit knowledge

Exp

lic

it k

no

wle

dg

e

Tacit knowledge

Tac

it k

no

wle

dg

e

SECI model


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

„Bricks“ of the knowledge management

• Analysing the experience of a great number of knowledge experts from organisations

• Over the lifecycle of knowledge

• All topics are connected to each other

• How to structure KM projects?

Knowledge

Identification

Knowledge

acquisition

Knowledge

development

Knowledge

distribution

Knowledge

conservation

Knowledge

usage

Knowledge

objectives

Knowledge

evaluation

Feedback

Source: „Bausteine des Wissensmanagements“, Probst, Raub, Romhardt, 1997


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Practical approach

Use the steps from quality management: Plan – Do – Check - Act cycle (PDCA) Acting follows each line, realising the trained processes

Acting with concept Knowledge base

Knowledge

transfer

Knowledge

development

Knowledge usage

Plan: Requirement analysis

What kind of k. ? (Identification)

From which sources? To whom?

Where new k. will develop?

Which processes require what details

Do: Realisation Select a database

Content collection and transfer, glossary

Regular Workshops, glossary

Knowledge networks, Solution development

Do: Training, Process integration

Administrator-Training

Administrator, translators, new authors

Authors, users, translators

User related processes, decision making

Check:

Evaluation

All kinds of k. available?

All required data achievable?

New knowledge develops ?

Is the knowledge usable?

MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST


[email protected]

Knowledge Management in practice:

Wiki Project „Landmine Detection Technologies“ in Khmer Language


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Wiki Project „Landmine Detection Technologies“

• Objective: Share the innovative knowledge about landmine detection technologies with people, who need this knowledge and experience to develop, build and test specialised detection methods (and finally use it)

• Not only the metal detector, the prodder or the dog, but technologies from the edge of science (space research, information technologies…) – with higher confidence – should be used in combined devices, adapted to the individual environmental situation.

• To make this happens we need educated, experienced people, from laity to the scientific staff!

• Share knowledge with people in landmine affected areas


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Topics

• Collect reliable, scientific knowledge and experience on detection technologies

• Develop networks, which will collect and share the knowledge

• Develop and implement a simulation tool (software) to interpret and test various methods under different conditions before an expensive development of devices takes place


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Wiki – Exchange Platform

• MediaWiki is an Open Source Software (used in www.wikipedia.org)

• Content Management System is open for authors– Usually for „spammers“ too – Quality management is necessary

• Access management for registered users– On Top: Bureaucrat = can lock/unlock pages – Sysop = can unclose IP-numbers from being an author, follow

the spamming sources – Authors: can contribute on open pages– In name spaces: Member related pages (internals)


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Licensing – Basis of Trust

• Free Usage of Open Source Documents, not crossing the rights of others

• Free transfer of free knowledge: Just name of the author and the source

• Information with a binding character:– Knowledge must be based on trustable sources.– Authors should be known and so you can send an email to the author.– Translations should be proofed by experts.

• How to solve the conflict: Each expert should be able to add value, but a small organisation should control the access!

– Requires more than one administrator in each country and a living network between them.

– Requires strict rules how to handle misuse or routine questions.


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Step “Plan”: Knowledge Base

• Scientific methods and technologies– Detection methods (more than twenty different methods are known!)– Properties of mines, of materials and physical behaviour over the time (differs from

country to country)– Relevant properties of environment: Soil, plant cover, animals, weather, climate,...– First Source: RAND

• Experience of deminers, expert opinion: – Behaviour of detection equipment, main errors, etc. – Dependence of weather, light, season, moisture and long term weathering– Behaviour of demining staff, “human factor”, …

• Networks– Expertise from organizations, governmental and non-governmental – Scientific expertise: universities, research & development, projects– Developers of different (electronic and non-electronic) devices– Deminers, Social staff, …


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Step “Do.1”: Categorization

• Categories help to organize the material and to structure it (Semantic net: innovative challenge)

• Categories help to link the information entries– Methods

– Mine types

– Environment

– Simulation

– Experience

– Network

– Knowledge (as generic term)

Changes under conditions

method

mine type

Have significant detection rate for

simulation

simulate

environment

Require information about

A B


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Step “Do.2”: Processes

The main ActorsActors of the knowledge management system and their processesprocesses:

– Authors (Scientists, Experts)• Public content: Methods, Mine types, Simulation methods• Develop the projects, step by step (vision: simulation tool, development of devices)

– Translators• Translate from and into other languages• Proof the translation, have a discourse on new scientific terms

– Net workers • Acquire partners and sponsors• Looking for more scientists• Looking for new methods• Coordinate with other organisations• Publish links between partners

– Public Relations actors• Broadcasting of News and Events• Looking for sponsors and projects• Create presentations, publications, messages

– Business / Administration• Secure the existence and the cooperation inside of the organisation • Manage the material and financial resources

Actors

Task


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Step “Do.3”: Training

• Train two students from ITC as Mediawiki administrators – Implement Mediawiki software on a Linux / Apache / MySQL /

PHP server – Have Maintenance routines (Data security, updates / upgrades,

archives)– Fulfil the User rights management– Enable to support other users / authors

• Set up a network for translation and a glossary – Roundtable on Education for Landmine Detection Technologies


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Step “Check.1”: Challenges

• Networking online und face-to-face– Adapted to situation and culture: In most cases a face-to-face situation

help to solve many problems

• Mass and Class – The Quality Question– Decision about quality criteria is needed, not to limit the contribution of

experienced authors

– Motivation

• Conflicts due to competition on the market– International deminers could be afraid of decreasing budgets

– Developers of devices for business: They might limit their contribution to an open source database (“knowledge for domination”)

– Conflicts due to the resemblance to military sciences: They use the same methods, but with other objectives.


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Step “Check.2”: Challenges

• Financing of scientific or educational projects– Rotary International and Mine-Ex Rotary collect money

for education

– Science against mines give money for education and wiki serving

– Help for helping yourself: Support of the development of regional landmine detection businesses


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Step “Act”: Now it is your task

• Help to develop Khmer wikipedia http://km. Wikipedia.org– Which kind of knowledge you could contribute? Prepare an article!

– Create a personal account

– Learn, how to create and edit articles, upload common images and media

– Link your article with others

– Follow the interaction of other users-wikipedians

– Continue again from beginning

• Help to develop Khmer Landmine Detection Technologies Wiki and disseminate it to a broad audience (Transfer)

• Join the ITC course about Detection Technologies (later)


MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST

Next lines: Your challenge !

• Transfer, development and usage of knowledge: – Get more knowledge about which kind of technologies is useful

for landmine detection in your environmentand make your decision about what is worth to develop further

• Work in networks – to solve complex problems,– to learn from the experience of others,– to help in your home area to make your country free of tragic

incidents and to make it useable for farming and business,– to add and transfer your knowledge into other affected countries.

• Have success and fun!

MINESSCIEN

CE

AGAINST


[email protected]

Thank you for your attention

Landmine Detection Technologies Wiki in

Khmer language
