Roadmapping as a way of knowledge management for supporting scientific research in academia

SystemsResearchandBehavioralScienceSyst. Res.23, 743^755 (2006)Publishedonline 27 February 2006 inWiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com)DOI:10.1002/sres.708

& ResearchPaper

Roadmapping as a Way of KnowledgeManagement for Supporting ScientificResearch in Academia

Tieju Ma1,2*, Shu Liu1 and Yoshiteru Nakamori1

1Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa, Japan2International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria

Motorola Inc. first introduced the concept of a ‘roadmap’ in the 1970s as a kind of strategicplanning tool. This paper argues that roadmapping can also be a useful way to manageknowledge in academia and to support scientific research. By applying the principles ofinteractive planning methodology, this paper puts forward a new methodology formaking personal academic research roadmaps as a way of knowledge management inacademia. This methodology is composed of six phases: forming groups, explanationfrom knowledge coordinators, description of present situation, current status andidealized design reports from every member, research and study schedules, andimplementation and control. After introducing the approach, a case study describingthe application of the methodology at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science andTechnology is given. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords roadmapping; knowledge management; scientific research

INTRODUCTION

Knowledge management has had growingconcerns from the 1990s with the recognition thatknowledge plays the predominant part in eco-nomic growth and that the ability of learningand knowledge creation is the only resourcefor continual competence. With terms such as

‘learning organizations’ (see Senge, 1990),‘knowledge-creating company’ (see Nonakaand Takeuchi, 1995) and ‘knowledge-basedeconomy’ (see OECD, 1996), research andpractices in knowledge management havepaid much attention to business area as ‘afast-moving field created by the collision ofseveral others, including human resources, orga-nizational development, change management,information technology, brand and reputationmanagement, performance measurement andevaluation’ (see Bukowitz and Williams, 1999).

Received 23 June 2004Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 3 May 2005

* Correspondence to: Tieju Ma, Transition to New Technology Project,International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, A-2361 Laxen-burg, Austria. E-mail: [email protected]

Although academia plays an important role inknowledge creation (mainly by scientificresearch), knowledge sharing and knowledgediffusion (mainly by education and publicservice), research and practices in knowledgemanagement in academia have much fewerconcerns than those in the business area. This ismainly because that activities carried out inacademia are mainly for the purpose of improv-ing social profits for all human beings (thus withless commercial background), and the mechan-isms of knowledge creation by scientific researchare really difficult to model. In recent years, withthe increasing cooperation among academia,industries and governments, researchers andscholars have come to see the importance ofknowledge management in academia. As men-tioned by Kidwell et al. (2000), ‘colleges anduniversities have significant opportunities toapply knowledge management practices to sup-port every part of their mission—from educationto public service to research’.

In this paper, we will put forward a newmethodology for knowledge management inacademia by applying interactive planning (IP)to develop personal academic research road-maps. The main targets of academic labs shouldbe ‘emerging technology’ and ‘creative inven-tion’, and academic labs should also play a role inthe accumulation and expansion of scientificknowledge and inspiring researchers. The pro-cess of making research roadmaps is a knowledgecreation process. IP fits this feature very wellsince IP is regarded as a basic methodology forsolving creative problems. It was put forward byR. L. Ackoff (see Ackoff, 1974, 1978, 1981, 2001),whose work has had a major impact on all thevarious branches of the management sciences. IPhas demonstrated great power in dealing with awide range of possible organizational issues withvery insightful systems metaphors. For Ackoff,organizations are purposeful systems with theability to learn and adapt, rather thanmachines ororganisms.

We find these systems metaphors should alsobe applicable to an individual’s research. Ascientist’s research could also be seen as apurposeful system inside the brain. First, thissystem is composed of the knowledge and skills

the researcher already holds, of course, with acomplex relationship among them. To generateinvention and innovation, this system shouldalways keep learning and adapting. A research-er’s general research purpose can be divided intoseveral sublevel purposes, and at the same time,that research is included in a more generalresearch goal, for example, the goal of theresearch group to which the individual belongs.This accords with the systems metaphor that a‘purposeful system’ contains other ‘purposefulsystems’ and is part of a ‘wider purposefulsystem’ (see Flood and Jackson, 1991).

Applying the ideas of IP to the process ofmaking personal academic research roadmapscan enhance communication among researchersfrom different fields, since IP pays much atten-tion to the participation of stakeholders. Inaddition, an atmosphere can be created in whichresearch on ‘emerging technology’ and ‘creativeinvention’ are encouraged by what Ackoff hascalled ‘idealized design’ (see Ackoff, 1974, 1978,1981, 2001).

The rest of this paper is organized as thefollowing. The next section introduces the con-cept of roadmaps, roadmapping techniques andpersonal academic research roadmaps. The thirdsection first provides a brief introduction to IPmethodology, and then highlights how IP androadmapping can contribute to knowledge man-agement for supporting scientific research. Thefourth section outlines a new methodology formaking personal academic research roadmapsbased on IP. The fifth section provides a casestudy describing the application of the newmethodology at the Japan Advanced Instituteof Science and Technology (JAIST). The sixthsection introduces a roadmapping support sys-tem under development. The seventh sectionconcludes the paper.

ROADMAP AND ROADMAPPINGTECHNIQUES

Roadmap

Motorola Inc. first introduced the concept of the‘roadmap’ as a strategic planning tool in the

RESEARCH PAPER Syst. Res.

Copyright � 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Syst. Res. 23, 743^755 (2006)

744 Tieju Ma et al.

1970s. Perhaps the most widely accepted defini-tion of a roadmap was given by Bob Galvin, CEOof Motorola: ‘A roadmap is an extended look atthe future of a chosen field of inquiry composedfrom the collective knowledge and imaginationof the brightest drivers of change in that field’.Now the term ‘roadmap’ is used liberally byplanners in many different types of commu-nities. It appears to have a multiplicity ofmeanings, and is used in a wide variety ofcontexts (see Kostoff and Schaller, 2001). ‘Road-map’ can mean different things to differentpeople. What all those different roadmaps havein common, however, is their goal, to help theirowners clarify the following three problems:

* Where are we now?* Where do we want to go?* How can we get there?

Roadmaps are also communication tools, not justplanning tools (see Coyle, 2004). They enableowners to:

* visualize the hierarchy of scenarios;* see time relationships and dependencies intui-

tively;* use legends that provide an additional dimen-

sion for visualization.

Roadmaps can condense a large amount ofinformation into an intuitive format.

Roadmapping Techniques

Simply speaking, roadmapping means the pro-cess of making roadmaps, or, more theoretically,roadmapping is a ‘disciplined process for identi-fying the activities and schedules necessary tomanage technical (and other) risks and uncer-tainties associated with solving complex pro-blems’ (see Bennett, no date).

Participants can employ various techniques todevelop a roadmap. There are some successfulsolutions for roadmapping in industry (see Phaalet al., 2001). According to the Australian Depart-ment of Industry, Science and Resources, gen-erally, there are three approaches for makingtechnology roadmaps in industry (see AustralianDepartment of Industry, Science and Resources,2001):

* Expert-based approach. A team of experts comestogether to identify the structural relation-ships within the field and specify the quanti-tative and qualitative attributes of theroadmap.

* Workshop-based approach. This technique isused to engage a wider group of industry,research, academic, government and otherstakeholders to draw on their knowledgeand experiences.

* Computer-based approach. Large databases arescanned to identify research, technology,engineering and product areas of relevance.High-speed computers, intelligent algorithmsand other modelling tools can assist inestimating and quantifying the relative impor-tance of these areas and in exploring theirrelationships to other fields.

Of course, these three approaches are notindependent. For example, when the expert-based approach is applied to making roadmaps,it is inevitable to arrange some workshops (bymeeting or by Internet), and computers, intelli-gent algorithms, etc. can be used to providesupplemental information and knowledge toexperts. In other words, during the roadmappingprocess, it is most likely that all three of theabove approaches are used, with more features ofone approach than the others. The above threeapproaches are summarized in a general way. Inpractice, the roadmapping process should becustomized according to the objectives, theorganizational culture, and so on.

Roadmaps are the result of a consensusbuilding process. In this sense, roadmapping issimilar to the foresight process (see Salo andCuhls, 2003). The difference between foresightand roadmapping is that foresight focuses onwhat the future will be like, while roadmappingtries to find the best way to realize the expectedfuture.

Personal Academic Research Roadmaps

Roadmapping techniques have been used inacademic institutions as a strategic planningtool. Some academic institutions publish theirresearch roadmaps; for example, the Berkeley

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Roadmapping as aWay of Knowledge Management 745

Lab at the University of California makes andpublishes a research roadmap for its High-Performance Data Centers (see Tschudi et al.,2002). Roadmapping is also very helpful forindividual researchers in the following senses:

* It can help a researcher clearly understandwhat are the bases of his/her research (wherehe/she is now), what kind of results theresearch aims to get (where he/she wants togo), and what activities should be done (howhe/she can get there).

* It can promote communication among re-searchers, especially within a research groupor within the same lab, since roadmaps arealso communication tools, not just planningtools (see Coyle, 2004).

* When academic researchers need to work onthe same big project, roadmaps can clarifyevery researcher’s role in the project.

* It is helpful for supervisors to understand eachresearcher’s progress. On a personal roadmap,there are milestones for the researcher’sresearch activity, so it is easy for supervisorsto know what the researcher has done, whathe/she is doing, what he/she will do, andwhen and how. Thus supervisors can givetheir opinions based on good understandings.

Little work has been done to consider roadmapsfor individual researchers. The rest of this paperwill describe a process of making personalresearch roadmaps by applying an interactiveplanning method.

Content and Format of Personal AcademicResearch Roadmaps

The content and format of the personal academicresearch roadmaps proposed in this paper followthe ATRM (academic technology roadmap)model (see Okuzu, 2002).

There are five blocks in the ATRM model, asshown in Figure 1.

* Block I: Prototype or past research. This describeswhat the researcher wants to focus on and thecurrent status of the research objective.

* Block II: Experience. This describes what skills/knowledge the researcher already has.

* Block III: Research schedule. This describes whatresearch projects the researcher will do andthe schedule and milestones for doing thoseprojects.

* Block IV: Study schedule. This describes whatkind of skills and knowledge the researcher

Figure 1. ATRM model (see Okuzu, 2002)



746 Tieju Ma et al.

must acquire in order to fulfil the researchplan.

* Block V: Future possibilities. This describes whatkind of future work can be done after finishingthe research schedule in Block III, and whatkind of future achievements might beobtained.

INTERACTIVE PLANNING (IP)

Principles of IP

With its three important principles—participa-tive, continuity and holistic—IP is regarded as abasic methodology for solving creative problems.

* Participative principle. Ackoff believed that theprocess of planning is more important thanthe actual plan produced. ‘It is by beinginvolved in the planning process that mem-bers of the organization come to understandthe organization and the role they can play init. It follows, of course, that no one can plan foranyone else—because this would take awaythe main benefit of planning’ (see Flood andJackson, 1991). Ackoff also thought that allthose who are affected by planning should beinvolved in it. In general, the participativeprinciple requires that all stakeholders shouldideally participate in the various stages of theplanning process.

* Continuity principle. This principle points outthat planning is a never-ending process, sincethe values of the organization’s stakeholderswill change over time and unexpected eventswill occur. ‘No plan can predict everything inadvance, so plans, under the principle ofcontinuity, should be constantly revised’ (seeFlood and Jackson, 1991).

* Holistic principle. This principle insists thatpeople should make plans both simulta-neously and interdependently. Not onlyshould units at the same level plan togetherand at the same time—because it is theinteractions between units rather than theirindependent actions which give rise to mostdifficulties—but also, units at differentlevels should plan simultaneously and

together, because decisions taken at one levelwill usually have effects at other levels aswell.

These three principles should also be veryimportant in a roadmapping process since aroadmap is a kind of strategic plan.

Phases of IP

There are five phases of interactive planning:formulating the issue, ends planning, meansplanning, resource planning, and design ofthe implementation and controls. Sometimesthe final phase is divided into two: designof the implementation and design of the controls(Ackoff, 2001). These phases should be ‘regardedas constituting a systemic process, so the phasesmay be started in any order and none of thephases, let alone the whole process, should everbe regarded as completed’ (see Flood andJackson, 1991). In the following, we will brieflyintroduce those phases. The introduction ismainly based on the chapter titled ‘InteractivePlanning’ in the book Creative Problem Solving(see Flood and Jackson, 1991).

Formulating the IssueIn this phase, problems, prospects, threats andopportunities facing the organization are high-lighted. According to Ackoff, three types ofstudy are necessary:

* Systems analysis—giving a detailed picture ofthe organization and how it works, who itaffects and how, and its relationship with itsenvironment.

* Obstruction analysis—setting out any obsta-cles to corporate development.

* Preparation of reference projections—whichextrapolate on the organization’s present per-formance in order to predict future perfor-mance if nothing is done and trends in theenvironment continue as now.

Synthesizing the results of these three types ofstudy yields a reference scenario, which is aformulation of the situation the organization iscurrently in.




Ends PlanningEnds planning concerns specifying the ends to bepursued in terms of ideals, objectives, and goals.The process begins with ‘idealized design’,which is both the most unique and most essentialfeature of Ackoff’s approach. An idealizeddesign is prepared by going through three steps:

* Selecting the mission—a general-purpose state-ment incorporating the organization’s responsi-bilities to its environment and stakeholders, andpropounding a vision of what the organizationcould be like, which generates commitment.

* Specifying the desired properties of thedesign—a comprehensive list of the desiredproperties stakeholders agree should be builtinto the system.

* Designing the system—setting out how all thespecified properties of the idealized designcan be obtained.

Idealized design is meant to generate maximumcreativity among all the stakeholders involved.To ensure this, only two types of constraint uponthe design are admissible. First, it must betechnologically feasible, not a work of sciencefiction; it must be possible with known technol-ogy or likely technological developments; but itshould not for example, assume telepathy.Second, it must be operationally viable; it shouldbe capable of working and surviving if it isimplemented. Financial, political or similar con-straints are not allowed to restrict the creativityof the design.

Means PlanningDuring this phase policies and proposals aregenerated and examined with a view to decidingwhether they can help fill the gap between thedesired future and the way the future appears atthemoment. Creativity is needed to discover waysof bringing the organization towards the desirablefuture invented by its stakeholders. Alternativemeans to reach the specified ends must be care-fully evaluated and a selection made.

Resource PlanningDuring this stage of planning, Ackoff recom-mends that four types of resources should betaken into account:

* inputs—materials, supplies, energy and ser-vices;

* facilities and equipment—capital invest-ments;

* personnel;* money.

Design of Implementation and ControlThis ‘final’ phase of interactive planning con-cerns itself with seeing that all the decisionsmade hitherto are carried out. ‘Who is to dowhat, when, where, and how?’ is decided.Implementation is achieved and continuallymonitored to ensure that plans are being realizedand that desired results are being achieved. Theoutcome is feedback into the planning process sothat learning is possible and improvements canbe devised.

IP, Roadmapping and KnowledgeManagement

In the description of IP, the objects are organiza-tions, or systems from the viewpoint of systemsscience. A personal academic research roadmap(Figure 1) can also be seen as a system, with fivecomponents. In this sense, the five phases of IPcan be clearly mapped to the three importantquestions that roadmapping aims to answer. Thefirst phase of IP, namely ‘formulating the issue’,in fact tries to answer the question ‘Where are wenow?’; the second phase of IP, ‘ends planning’,corresponds to the problem ‘Where do we wantto go?’; and the remaining three phases of IP—‘means planning’, ‘resource planning’ and‘design of implementation and control’—arefor answering the question ‘how can we getthere?’ Figure 2 shows the relationship betweenIP and the three important problems whichroadmapping aims to solve.

People have defined knowledge managementfrom many different aspects (see Liebowitz,1999). Knowledge management covers manyfields such as human resources, organizationaldevelopment, change management, informationtechnology, brand and reputation management,performance measurement and evaluation, and



748 Tieju Ma et al.

so on. Here we are not going to discuss differentdefinitions and aspects of knowledge manage-ment, which is not the main purpose and beyondthe capacity of this paper. Instead, we willhighlight how roadmapping and IP can contri-bute to the knowledge management in academiafor supporting scientific research.

Roadmapping and IP can improve knowledgesharing among researchers and other stake-holders such as sponsors of research. By invol-ving in the roadmapping process (participativeprinciple of IP), people (researchers and otherstakeholders) share their expertise and ideas;roadmapping is a never-ending process (con-tinuity principle of IP); thus people involved inroadmapping can continuously share knowl-edge; and applying the holistic principle inroadmapping provides the chance of knowledgesharing among people at different levels andfrom different fields. There are two ways ofknowledge sharing in a roadmapping process.The first is that people meet and talk with eachother informally during roadmapping, andknowledge sharing proceeds unconsciously.This is not much different from knowledgesharing during parties and other meetings. Thesecond is that knowledge sharing is verypurposefully carried out. People participatingin roadmapping will be asked (in scheduled

workshops or seminars) to answer pre-designedquestions or give their opinions and ideas tosome specific issues according to their expertise.And those answers, opinions and ideas will beintegrated into roadmaps. As we mentioned,roadmaps are also communication tools, not justplanning tools; thus well-documented roadmapsfurther improve knowledge sharing amongresearchers and other stakeholders.

Roadmapping is a knowledge creation pro-cess. From the viewpoint of Nonaka andTakeuchi’s SECI model (Figure 3), when peoplestart roadmapping they begin to share theirexperience and expertise (mainly in the form oftacit knowledge)—socialization; by articulatingand documenting participators’ experience andexpertise on the issues related to the topic of theroadmap under development, those shared tacitknowledge become available to all the participa-tors—externalization; roadmaps are the resultsof converting articulated participators’ experi-ence and expertise—combination; during theprocess of implementing roadmaps, new tacitknowledge will come into being in individualmembers’ mind—internalization. Roadmapsneed to be continuously adjusted and improvedaccording to members’ new understandings andthe emergency in the real world. A never-endingprocess of roadmapping thus is an SECI spiral ofknowledge creation.

The following section outlines a methodologyfor making personal academic research road-maps based on IP.

Figure 2. IP and roadmapping

Figure 3. The SECI spiral of knowledge creation(see Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995)




IP FOR MAKING PERSONAL ACADEMICRESEARCH ROADMAPS

This newmethodology has six phases, with somecycles among those phases. The following is thedescription of those phases:

Phase 1: Forming groups. The new methodologysuggests that the roadmapping be a teamactivity. This accords with the participativeprinciple of IP. Groups can be formed insidea single lab, and it is suggested that agroup be composed of different researchersfrom different labs, even different fields. Agroup should contain two kinds of membersin addition to the regular members. Thefirst is experienced researchers, for exampleprofessors and associate professors. It isnot necessary to have many experiencedresearchers in a team, but at least one shouldbe present. The second is knowledge coordi-nators. Knowledge coordinators are thosepeople who can manage creative researchactivities based on the theory of knowledgecreation (see Nakamori, 2003a). Knowledgecoordinators can be master students, doctoralstudents or any other people who havethe ability to be knowledge coordinators.Commonly, each group needs one or twoknowledge coordinators. For effective com-munication among group members, thenumber of members in a group should notbe too large. However, if the number ofmembers is too small, it will be not good forknowledge sharing and knowledge acquisi-tion. The authors suggest 6–12 as an idealgroup size.

Phase 2: Explanation from knowledge coordinators.For applying the methodology smoothly, theknowledge coordinator should first explainthe following things to all group members:* the role of every member;* the purpose and advantage of making

personal research roadmaps;* the usage of personal research roadmaps;* the content and format of a personal

research roadmap;* the process of making a personal research

roadmap;

* the schedule of the group’s roadmappingactivity.

In sum, the explanation should make everymember aware of the aim of the group, whathe/she should do, and when, where and howto do it. During the explanation, all membersare encouraged to ask questions on pointswhich are not clear.

Phase 3: Description of present situation. In thisphase, the experienced researchers give adescription of the present situation, whichincludes:* basic knowledge in this research field;* the leading world groups/labs in the

research field;* list of journals related to this field;* common equipments and skills needed in

this field;* any other information and knowledge

which is helpful for members making theirresearch roadmaps.

In fact, it is very difficult to present all thisinformation at one time, so this phasecommonly includes several workshops orseminars.

Phase 4: Every member’s current status and idealizeddesign. In this phase, every member needs firstto describe the experience (the skills andknowledge) he/she already has. The listshould be shared with the entire group, sothat other members will be able to effectivelycontribute good opinions and ideas in laterdiscussions. Every member’s skills/knowl-edge list should be documented, as in BlockII in the formatted roadmap introduced inFigure 1. Commonly, a researcher or studentcan do this part alone. Next, each memberidentifies a prototype of his/her research topicand summarizes the current research on it.This part should be documented in Block I inFigure 1. From the IP viewpoint this andPhase 3 constitute ‘formulating the issue’.During this process, members can share theirknowledge and experience in discussions witheach other. By using IP’s idealized design,everymember describes his/her research goalsand how to reach the goals. Each member isencouraged to generate maximum creativity.The idealized designs are discussed by the



750 Tieju Ma et al.

whole group, and each individual can refineand modify his/her idealized design with thebenefit of thewhole group’s knowledge. Futurepossibilities (Block V in Figure 1) can also beidentified in this phase through discussion. Inthis phase, the knowledge coordinator(s) of thegroup need to arrange several workshops orseminars, until eachmember’s idealizeddesignis accepted by all (or most of) the members.

Phase 5: Research schedule and study schedule. ByPhase 4, the roadmapping questions havebeen answered, which means all membersknow where they are, where they want to goand how to get there. Now it’s time tointegrate those answers into roadmaps. In thisphase each member puts forward a researchschedule (Block III in Figure 1) and studyschedule (Block IV in Figure 1) which can fulfilthe research goal and presents it to all groupmembers; members can present more thanone option. After getting opinions and ideasfrom the group members, members can refineand modify their own research schedule andstudy schedule. As in Phase 4, the knowledgecoordinator(s) of the group must arrangeseveral workshops until each member’sresearch schedule and study schedule havebeen accepted by all (or most of) the members.This phase corresponds to IP’s ‘meansplanning’ (research schedule) and ‘resourceplanning’ (study schedule).

Phase 6: Implementation and control. By Phase 5,each researcher’s personal research roadmap isready. The knowledge coordinator(s) shouldarrange regular seminars and workshops tomonitor and control the implementation of thepersonal research roadmaps. Although mucheffort has gone into making a reasonable rese-arch roadmap, it is still a first cut. The roadmapshould be continuously refined in practice,which accords with the continuity principle ofIP. That is to say, people need to go back toprevious phases again and again. But it is notnecessary to go back to the very beginning. Thegroup can start again from any previous phaseaccording to the real situation.

Figure 4 shows the above process for makingpersonal academic roadmaps.

In the above narration, little attention has beenpaid to the holistic principle of IP. This principleis very important when all the group membersare working on the same project. In this case, it isnecessary to make a hierarchy of roadmaps. Thatis to say, the group needs to make roadmaps forvarious levels. The lower-level roadmaps shouldcoordinate with the next-level roadmaps.

There are no special measures to evaluate whatis a good roadmap and what is a bad one. It is upto the owner of the roadmap to decide whether itis good or bad. One way to evaluate roadmaps isto see what achievements are obtained byfollowing them.

Similar to Ackoff’s notion that the process ofplanning is more important than the actual planproduced, here the author would like to say thatthe process of roadmapping is more importantthan the roadmaps produced.

A CASE STUDY

JAIST (Japan Advanced Institute of Scienceand Technology) started a 21st-century COEprogramme in October 2003, led by ProfessorYoshiteru Nakamori. The goal of this pro-gramme is to establish an interdisciplinaryresearch field called the ‘study of scientificknowledge creation’. The new research field ofknowledge science is the basis of this program-me, which models the process of knowledgecreation and supports knowledge management(see Nakamori, 2003b).

Several doctoral students and researchers inthe School of Knowledge Science will do theirresearch within the framework of the COEprogramme. Their main purpose is to develop aknowledge management theory and system forlaboratories, but they have few ideas aboutwhere they should start, where they aim to go,and how they can reach their goals. Making theirpersonal roadmaps is very important and veryhelpful for their research work.

Before the group was formed, several work-shops about the COE programme were held, inwhich the COE leader explained the COEprogramme in detail. One aim of this programmeis to provide support to researchers at JAIST’s




School of Materials Science. Thus, when formingthe group, several students and researchers fromthe School of Materials Science and the School ofInformation Science were invited as consultants,and one master student was nominated as aknowledge coordinator. After forming thegroup, workshop 1 was held, in which theknowledge coordinator explained the itemslisted in the second phase of the new methodol-ogy (see Phase 2, above). In this workshop,members asked questions for clarification andshared their opinions and ideas about road-mapping.

Workshop 2 was then held, in which the groupleader gave a simple description of the COEprogramme, mainly for those members from theSchool of Materials Science and the School of

Information Science. Then a brainstorming ses-sion was carried out on the topic ‘what kind ofsupport is needed for supporting scientificresearch?’ Many ideas were obtained from thebrainstorming, which were classified into thefollowing four groups:

* support for research planning;* support for doing experiments;* support for writing papers;* support for promoting communications.

A summary was prepared and workshop 3was held to see what kind of work could be donebased on those ideas.

After workshop 3, every member prepared adescription of his/her current skills/knowledgeset. It was not necessary to have much discussion

Figure 4. A methodology for making personal research roadmaps in academia



752 Tieju Ma et al.

on this. The members then wrote out theirindividual research topics, along with a descrip-tion of what work had already been done relatedto this topic. Other members gave suggestions,opinions and additional knowledge related tothe topics. Two intensive seminars, seminar1 and seminar 2, were held in order to finalizethe research topics, and finally every member’sresearch topic was accepted by the group. Oncethe members had their topics, research modelsand experience, they began to consider theirgoals and how they could reach their goals byusing idealized designs. Every idealized designwas discussed in seminars (here another twoseminars, seminars 3 and 4, were held), then,based on the discussion in these seminars,members modified and improved their idealizeddesigns.

By seminar 4, those members who wanted tomake their personal roadmaps had clearly knownwhere they were and where they wanted to goand partly knew the answer to the problem ‘howcan we get there?’ It is time to make this answermuch more clearly. Seminars 5, 6 and 7 were heldfor this purpose. Every member was required towrite out research and study schedules ahead oftime and present them in seminar 5. Othermembers gave their comments and ideas, andthen the owners of the schedules modified themaccording to those opinions. This was repeated inseminars 6 and 7. After seminar 7, a consensuswas reached, so no additional seminars werecarried out, and the members’ first-cut personalacademic research roadmaps were completed.

During the process of implementation,researchers need to modify and improve theirroadmaps in response to new understandingsand real situations. For control, the groupdesigned regular seminars and reports tomonitor how things were going.

The following are some comments from groupmembers who made their personal roadmap byusing the methodology introduced in this paper.

‘In the process of roadmapping, little by little, Ibecome to know in what direction I should go.It’s really helpful for my research’ (a first-yeardoctoral student).

‘I have done my research for a PhD for oneyear. Roadmapping clarified what I have done

and what I should do in the next step, and it alsomade me realize the sense and future of myresearch’ (a second-year doctoral student).

‘I will continuously refine my personal road-map, not only to improve it, but because theprocess of making the roadmap enables me toimprove my research activity and foresee thefuture of my research’ (a postdoctoralresearcher).

In a word, those who were making andimproving their personal roadmaps felt theywere clearer about where they were, where theywanted to go, and how they could get there.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES FORSUPPORTING ROADMAPPING

As a way to manage knowledge in academia,roadmapping is independent of informationtechnology. However, the appropriate infor-mation technology, applied judiciously to theproper phase of the roadmapping process,can significantly improve the efficiency andeffectiveness of the roadmapping process (seeBergeron, 2003).

As a project sponsored by the COE pro-gramme at JAIST, a web-based group supportsystem is under development. This system hasthe following functions which can support theroadmapping process introduced in this paper:

* The system is web-based and can be accessedfrom anywhere through an Internet connec-tion with an authorized user account and apassword. This enables group members towork together to keep the process movingwithout having to physically meet each other.This can also promote the participation ofsome important stakeholders. In scientificlabs, the directors or experienced researchers,who can be thought as important stake-holders, may be very busy, with no time toparticipate in all of the discussions which playsuch an important role in the roadmappingprocess. With this system, they can input theirideas through the Internet, and those ideaswill be stored in the system and available tothose who can benefit from them.




* The system is built with JSP (Java Server Page),Java Servlet and Java Applet technologies.Users can access the system with an Internetbrowser without installing any other applica-tion software on their client computer (usersmay need to install a plug-in which will beautomatically downloaded and installedwhen accessing the system for the first time).The system is also expected to have a friendlyinterface that will require little user training.The easier the system is to use, the moreparticipation is expected.

* In accordance with Figure 1, the systemheuristically asks users to input the informa-tion and ideas which can be used to makepersonal academic roadmaps. That informa-tion and those ideas can be edited at any time.The online system can record and manageresearchers’ ideas and their ‘thinking history’.A picture is worth at least a thousand words.Therefore, the system not only automaticallyproduces the formatted roadmaps, as inFigure 1, but it will also generate figures toenhance understanding.

* The system provides a platform for groupmembers to share ideas. A user can view othermembers’ research roadmaps with the author-ization of owners of roadmaps, comment onthem, and see other members’ comments onhis/her own roadmaps. It will also providetools for Internet-based brainstorming andconsensus building.

* As many users, in different labs/groups,making their personal academic researchroadmaps within the system, a roadmaparchive will be formed in a bottom-up way.The system will provide intelligence for datamining that will tell users who is doing similarwork, who may be a potential researchpartner, and so on. Users will also be able tofind some research trends from the archive.

Ackoff considered ‘participative’ an importantprinciple, and put forward an organizationaldesign for participative planning. In this design,people are required to take part in differentplanning groups. Ackoff found that the benefitsin terms of coordinated activity, organizationalintegration andmotivation are very considerable.

This arrangement is a little unwieldy and timeconsuming since people need to attend manymeetings of different groups. With the aboveInternet-based system, a member can participatein different groups without having to physicallyattend the meetings.

IP has been criticized for ignoring the possibi-lity of overt or tacit coercion by senior peopleduring group meetings. The group support tools,such as Internet-based brainstorming, can beused to reduce IP’s disadvantages in this respect.

CONCLUSION

This paper argues that roadmapping can be auseful tool for knowledge management inacademia, and as a support for scientificresearch. After introducing roadmapping andinteractive planning, this paper proposed anew methodology with six phases for develop-ing personal academic research roadmaps byapplying the principles of interactive planning.The methodology has the following desirablefeatures:

(1) The ‘idealized design’ in the IP process canhelp researchers release their maximum crea-tivity (this is very important for promoting‘emerging technology’ and ‘creative inven-tion’, which are the primary tasks of academiclabs).

(2) It can provide strong forward feedback(in addition to backward feedback) beforeacademic researchers make their researchplans; this is especially valuable for newresearchers (such as master students). It alsocan better promote knowledge sharing amongresearchers.

(3) It introduces the concept of knowledgecoordinators into the whole process of makingroadmaps, making the process proceed moresmoothly.

Roadmapping can be an unwieldy and time-consuming process, which can discourage parti-cipation. This disadvantage can be reduced byapplying appropriate information technologyand by involving knowledge coordinators.



754 Tieju Ma et al.

In practice, we also found that roadmapping ismore welcomed by junior researchers than seniorresearchers. It seems the benefits of roadmap-ping for junior researchers are more obvious thanthose for senior researchers. Senior researchersare more likely to believe that they can arrangetheir research by themselves, and will bereluctant to spend time on roadmapping, butmost of them would like to help make juniorresearchers’ roadmaps. The junior researchersare more likely to find that they can get usefulinformation, knowledge, and good suggestionsand ideas through the roadmapping process.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors owe many thanks to ProfessorAndrzej P. Wierzbicki for his encouragementand valuable advice on this work. The authorsalso appreciate the help of Ms Judith Steeh, whoedited this manuscript. This research was spon-sored by the 21st-century COE programme atJAIST.

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Roadmapping as a way of knowledge management for supporting scientific research in academia