Knowledge

Knowledge Tacit (unarticulated) Knowledge

Explicit (Codified) Knowledge information in the right context

•Knowledge becomes intellectual assest on which an organisation’s sucess is dependent.

•Knowledge becomes the key competencies of organisations.

•The underlying factors of this trend:

•Introduction of new ICT to all level of society

•Faster innovation

•Shorter product cycles

•The requirement for high skilled labour in many industries

Knowledge Life Cycle

Knowledge Creation

Capture

Index

Store

RetrievalKnowledge Reuse

Knowledge Refinemen

tArchive

start

Knowledge Management

Contribution of ICT to knowledge management:

•ICT increase the availability and speed of information.

•ICT support better communication between people in defined spaces – open up possibility to exchange tacit knowledge

•Effectiveness of knowledge management becomes more important because:

•More mobile workforce and increasing employee turnover rates – lead to loss of knowledge

•Globalisation – people collaborate and exchange knowledge across continent and time zones.

Knowledge ManagementTechnology perspective

Organisational culture perspective

Knowledge Management Lifecycle

Knowledge Acquisition

Knowledge Representation

Knowledge Maintenance

Knowledge Use

UnstructuredJkjlk iuogns’jkhsui

jhkhpw

Knowledge Management Life Cycle

Semi-structured

automatic or manual extraction

Knowledge Model

Sharing

visualising

browsing

Searching

e.g. Middleware

Knowledge Model•Knowledge model is used for communicating knowledge /idea to someone

•Most Knowledge management system are developed based on the different chosen type of knowledge model.

Examples:

•Ladder

•Decision ladder, process ladder, composition ladder, concept ladder, etc

•Network Diagram

•Concept map, process map, state transition map

•Tabular representation

•Timeline, Frames/Tables, Matrix/Grid

•Hypertext

•Semantic Network

•Ontology (similar to concept map but conform to formalisations)

Example of knowledge model: Decision ladder

Description:

•To show the alternative courses of action for a particular decision.

•It also shows the pros and cons for each course of action, and possibly the assumptions for each pro and con

Usage:

•A useful way of representing detailed process knowledge

Example of knowledge model: Concept map

Description:

•A type of diagram that shows knowledge objects as nodes and the relationships between them as links (usually labelled arrows). Any types of concepts and relationships can be used.

Usage:

•To illustrate the semantic relationships between concepts

Weaknesses of current KM System

•Information searching

•Keyword based search retrieves irrelevant information

•Information Extraction

•Dependent on human efforts to extract (e.g browse and read) relevant information from information sources.

•Maintenance

•Difficulty in keeping weakly structured text sources consistent, correct and up-to-date

•Automatic document generation.

•Extra efforts are needed to generate semi-structured information presentations from semi-structured data.

Semantic web based Knowledge Management

•Semantic web

•extension of the current web (Bernes-Lee, 2001)

•Information becomes both human and machine understandable

•Ontologies are the core of semantic web

•Semantic web based knowledge management

•Use of ontology reasoning

•To cope with weaknesses that have been identified from current knowledge management

What is ontology?- This term has been used in several disciplines, from philosophy to knowledge engineering.

-E.g. 1: Perspective of philosophy

Ontology is the science of what is, of the kinds and structures of objects, properties, events, processes and relations in every area of reality (Barry Smith)

-E.g. 2 : Perspective of information science

An ontology is a description (like a formal specification of a program) of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents (Tom Gruber)

-In general, ontology comprised concepts, concept properties, relationships between concepts and constraints.

-It reflects a common undestanding of the semantics of the domain of discourse.

- Ontology language is used to define vocabularies that describe the semantics of the domain of discourse.

Something related to ontologyOntology languages:

•XML Schema

•RDF Schema

•OIL

•DAML+ OIL

•OWL

Example of ontology:

•Metadata can be defined based on ontology model

•There are pre-defined metadata from other sources,e.g. Wordnet.

•Concept properties are similar to attributes in object-oriented programming

metadata

Proposed methodology for semantic web based knowledge management

Feasibility Study•Focus domain for ontology•Identify people involved•Methods: observation, ethnographic study, literature study, questionnaire survey, interview, etc.

Ontology Kickoff•Requirement specification•Analyse knowledge sources•Create semi-formal description of ontology

Refinement•Knowledge elicitation with domain experts•Formalise target ontology

Evaluation•Check requirements•Test in target application•Analyse usage patterns

Maintenance & Evolution•Manage organisational maintenance process•Evolution of ontologies

How tacit knowledge is managed sociotechnically

•A large amount of the knowledge within an organisation may be tacit: it may be personal, context-specific and difficult to write down, it has usually been transmitted socially through a master-apprentice arrangement.

•More detail about tacit knowledge please see ”Polanyi, M. (1966) The Tacit Dimesion, London: Routledge and Paul”

•Failure to transmit tacit knowledge through an organisation may lead to loss of expertise when people leave, failure to benefit from the experience of others, unnecessary duplication of a learning process, etc.

•Transfer of explicit knowledge is usually supported via the sharing of information (along with additional meta-information).

•Technically transfer of tacit knowledge is usually indirectly supported in a way to allow and encourage domain experts to contact others with shared interests or concerns.

Approaches developed to assist in solving knowledge intensive tasks

Some examples of knowledge intensive tasks within and between organisations:

•Decision making

•Strategic Planning

•Creative Design

Knowledge management within the A/E/C sector focuses on capturing, sharing and reusing of decision rationale and design intent for decision making support.

Various reasoning approaches have been experimented to achieve the task:

•Model-based approach (e.g. IDEAL)

•Case-based approach (e.g. ARCHIE, CASECAD)

•Argumentation-based approach

•History-based approach

•Device-based approach

•Process-based approach

•Active-document based approach

Define early design stage based on literature studies

T

store

E-m

ail to

downlo

adT

Paper-based review

Fax to

+

upload

Face-to-face group meeting in physical workspace

Form internal model

T

Observation from Case Studies

Stakeholders

Design information & knowledge

Early design phase

Collaborative Design (loose couple)

Procurement methods

•Meeting minutes •programs•Sketches•Drawings•Etc.

IT-CODE:M3

Is summ

arisd to

Team organísational structure, tasks, responsibilities, when to get involved, profit sharing...

Ontology reasoning

Organise the weakly structured information with ontology model

Manual Annotation

Meeting minutes

Organise project team structure

•Design-build

•Design-bid-build

•Management

Contracting

•Inception & feasibility•Outline proposals•Scheme Design

Partnering

Walkthrough collaboration activities of early design phase

•Negotiation•Compromis

e•Agreement

PresentingImagin

g

•Integrate•Manage

•Make context of information explicit

•Reason context of information with ontology

Use template based UI to record meeting minutes

Auto-annotation

Backtrack information

•Who (creator/supporter/mitigator)?•What (content)?•When (date/stage of process)?•Where (location)?•How (agree/disagree)?•Why (design intent)

•Produce•Refer to

Need Communication

Use Case

Notations of the Rich Picture Diagram

Sign Description

e.g. •Role/community/actor/system that performs an assigned activity/task; or•Object that community/actor/system manipulates through interactions.

Activity/task conducted through interaction between roles/communities/actors/systems.

Interaction between roles/communities/actors/system that are depicted at both ends.

Artifact that is produced by an activitity or is referred to in an activity.

Concerns of an actor to perform his/her tasks.

Further explanation of role/community/actor/system/object.

Selection of the phd research study.

integrate

artifact

Asdsdadadd

Sec

tion

Info Block 1

Info Block 2

Section Title

Meeting Participants

Meeting Type

Meeting Location

Meeting Date

Project Name

Minutes Reference No.

Act

ion

take

r

Act

ion

taki

ng

date

Generic Structure of Paper-based Meeting Minutes

Object Relation

Collaboration process oriented

Questions raised:

”Following his initial review of the option 3 layout drawings, Jack advised that the deletion of one floor would reduce total vertical loads and the structural vertical member sizes are expect to be reduced.”

(an excerpt of informantion block from meeting minutes)

A piece of information is analogous as an object

Meta-tag Object Meta-tag

•What is the information about?

•Who creates the information?

•Why is the information created?

•When is the information created?

•How is the information created?

•Where to find the information?

Design intent & Decision rationale in Discussion content

<Participant>

agrees_with

<Alternative>

reviews

causes

<Project stage>

is_made_at<Agreement

>Deletion of 1 floor...expect to be

reduced.

<Container ID>ESD23456

<Container type> meeting minutes

has_ID is_contained_in

<Agreement>Bla bla bla

improves

is_m

ade_

at

<Participant>

<Location>URL:http://xxx.xx

has_location

proposes

is_made_at

<Name>

<Role>

has_role

has_name

has_role

has_name

Ontology drafting

Ontology written in OWL: ProjectOnto...1

Annotator of Info (information) Block

Minutes that contain this info block. Date of minutes is displayed. Details of minutes can be viewed by pressing the V button

Section title wherein this info block is organised

The date when the issue/idea is discussed

Title of the discussed issue/idea

The person who raises the issue/idea for discussion

The content of the discussed issue/idea

Action taker

The date when the completion of the assigned task is expected

Contextualise Relationships between Ideas/Issues

Categorise ideas/issues

Bind ideas/issues with context dependent relations Title of the discussed issues/ideas.

Detailed description is available by double clicking the symbol.

Group DiscussionTasks:

•You are required to form groups of 5-6.

•Discuss the following assignment question in group. Discussion time : 1 hour 30 minutes

•Share your discussion result(s) in front of the class (yes, it means to present the discussion results). Each group will have 10 minutes to present the results. You are required to submit your presentation material(s) at the end of the class.

Assignment question:

• As mentioned in the course material, knowledge is one of the important strategic resources of an organisation. Knowledge has been identified as intellectual asset that may improve competencies of organisations, and most knowledge is tacit. Anthony is a famous architect in the city and he owns an architectural firm for more than 20 years with 50 employees work under him. Anthony faces dilemmas of high employee turnover rate, increased mobile workforce and globalisation, which challenge his mode of practice. If you were asked to spend some time to help Anthony out of these dilemmas with your background knowledge and ICT skills, what will you do?

• Hints:

• Firstly, you may use your own fantasy to illustrate the current mode of practice of Anthony’s architectural firm.

• Secondly, you may analyse in depth why Anthony needs to change his mode of practice. You may need to specify the methodology you use for your analysis (e.g interview, ethnographic study, etc).

• You may use your fantasy filtered with what you have learnt from this course (Master of IT and Building Management) to draft a new system for Anthony’s firm that may cope with Anthony’s problems that you stated previously. REMEMBER to share with us ALL of your results of discussions.