«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems» Thierry Nabeth EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3

«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»Thierry Nabeth

EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004

EGov E ’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004

INSEAD CALT – The Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies,Fontainebleau, France

Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management

SystemsThierry NABETH



Situation

• Many of the approaches proposed until now for managing knowledge were too narrow (knowledge = only document) and often mainly driven by technologies. As a consequence many of them have failed.

• Yet, the Management of Knowledge still represents a critical challenge in all sectors, and even more so in the public sector (many pressures to do more with less).

• New approaches have appeared, «promissing» to change this situation (learning networks, ontologies, knowledge ecology, personalization, etc.). It is difficult to sort out what are these approaches worth (buzzwords?)



Presentation Objectives

• To reflect on the reasons why many of the Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives have failed.

• To present recent researches in KM and a vision of the Future of Knowledge Management. (what is the next-generation like?)

• Subsequently, to understand what is really behind the new « buzz » words (Ontologies, Learning Networks, Personalization, etc.).

•What’s in it for the E-Governement?



The reasons of the fealure:

The Reasons of the fealure:

• A two narrow technological vision (let’s create a big database).• A too shadow and passive support of the knowledge processes (KM should include support for K-exchange, K-use, K-stimulation, cultural transformation, etc.).• A user not enough in control (empowerment?).• An under-estimation of the importance of the Human factors (resistance to change, social dynamic aspects, etc).



Some Mythes to be challenged

• Knowledge is only in the document. The perfect Knowledge Management system is a big database system that will have captured all the knowledge of the organization.

• Universality. The more general, powerful and complete the solution, the better. (let’s provide the maximum of functionalities to every user).

• Social interaction spontaneously «emerges» once you have provided the adequate communication infrastructure.

• People are self motivated and are eager to adopt new processes if this help the organization to become more efficient.



The reality (knowledge = only in the documents?)

• A very important amount of Knowledge is not (and never will be) present in documents*.

• An important role of KM Systems should be to provide mechanisms that support the circulation & exploitation of the tacit knowledge. (the ultimate objective of KM is that K is used, not that it is stored!).

*Note: Why tacit knowledge will remain important?• Because making the knowledge explicit is an heavy operation (expensive), which can hamper the flexibility of the organization.• Because Knowledge can sometime be difficult to formalize and risks exist of overcoming the formalization of important pieces of knowledge.• Because people are lazy, and capturing knowledge is often boring.



The reality (the more the better?)

• People are getting overwhelmed by information overload (think of email for instance).

• KM systems should not try to provide to all users every functionality, and to deliver all the knowledge that is potentially useful, but rather to provide the individuals with what they really need.

• KM systems should develop a very deep understanding of the user (including his cognitive style and his working context) in order to be able to deliver him relevant (according to his profile and context) knowledge and support to his work.



The reality (communication tools social interaction ?)

• Many of the first generation virtual community systems (computer supported knowledge networks in which the tacit knowledge flows) have died due to the belief that the availability of communication tools (bulletin boards, etc.) was a sufficient condition for social interaction.

• The process of creating, growing & maintaining virtual community systems is complex and involve many human factors. KM systems should explicitly address and support the social dynamic aspects (creation, growth & maintenance).



The reality (people are self motivated?)

• Many People are satisfied by the status-quo. They only change their practices when they have no other choice, or at least after they have well evaluated the risks and have some guaranty that they will received a minimum of support in this transition.

• KM systems should actively help and stimulate the users in engaging in a continuous knowledge management process and exchange.• Also, people are different and are in particular driven by different motives. Systems should take this into account.

Note: the limitation of this “self motivation” is in particular visible in the difficulty of making people to share their knowledge.



A vision for the future:

The Vision of KM, some directions:

• Emcompassing all the processes (identification, capture, acquisition, exchange, use, stimulation, etc.), knowledge sources (including tacit knowledge), and the different categories of users.• A deep and active support of the knowledge processes (high level active & cognitive objects reflecting the mental models of the users).• The empowered the user (the user is in control), and taking into account his/her specificity.• Addressing the social factors, managing the change (cultural transformation).



A vision for the future:

KM, what is it for the E-Government?

• To supporting the management of knowledge:• Inside the administration.• Between the central administration and the local administrations (municipalities, etc.), amongst administrations.• to managing the relationships with the administration and the citizens.

• Objectives:• to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the access & sharing and used of knowledge.• to accelerate in the dissemination of ideas and the adoption of new practice (managing relationship, change).



A vision for the future

Next Knowledge Management Systems some directions:

• (1) provide tailored (personalised) support to the users (taking into account the specificity / context)

• (2) better address the management of tacit knowledge, and in particular the social aspects of knowledge exchange

• (3) provide to the users with high-level (cognitive) interface and actively engage activelly them in the dynamic of knowledge processes (stimulation).



Executing the vision

The «tools» of the vision

(1) personalize the interaction in order to maximize the value / impact of this interaction. Reduce information overload.

(2) provide mechanisms supporting deeply the social and human dimension.

(3) use active mechanisms proactively engaging the individual & group into knowledge activities.



Personalising the interaction

Taking into account the context.

• Take into account the characteristic of the users (role, users’ current working activities, preferences, cognitive style, etc.).

• Personalising the interactions according to the organizational context (priorities, goal orientations).

• Note in the perspective of the e-government:• Better knowing people also brings the

possibility to better serve them



Personalising the interaction (2)

Technologies & Researches conducted in this direction

• Key technologies used: Ontology (modeling the user, the work context, the organization) and AI (matching)

• Standards: e-Learning standards, HR-XML, identity representation, etc.

• Example of works in this direction: • Ontologging, (deep user modeling via

ontology)• LIP (next generation e-learning systems able

to take into account the context)



Supporting the social dimension

Key concepts & means.

• Supporting different modes of Communication (synchronous, asynchronous).

• Social transluscence: Making the social activity visible (social pressure, trust building, motivation, etc).

• Deep support for the social processes: facilitation, recommander & opinion, group formation.

• Managing the cultural transformation (i.e. attitude transformation for sharing knowledge), incentives etc.



Supporting the social dimension (2)

Technologies & research

• Communication tools (mail, bulletin board chats, etc.), … Virtual community systems.

• Social transluscence & navigation tools. Provide

realtime indicators of the social activity (who contributes, who read, what are the knowledge element the most accessed, social network visualization, etc.). Analysing digital trace.

• Advanced coordinations tools (technical or not technical). Example: moderation, facilitation, structure, etc.

• Change management (transforming people attitude).



Deep & Proactive support for knowledge activities


• High-level (cognitive) knowledge objects. Ontology are used to help to manipulate concepts familiars to the one used by the knowledge worker (people, projects, topics etc.)

• Serendipity & in context search (navigation). (versus search engines)

• Personal artificial agents that develop a deep understanding of the user and intervene. Stimulus agent, KInCA project (change management)



Deep & Proactive support for knowledge activities (2)


• Agents that exploit the social traces to intervene proatively and stimulate the social activities.

• Electronic circulation folders (BSCW)

• Interactive experiences (EdComNet & multi-users virtual reality)

• Etc.



When will these mechanisms be available?

• Some of them already present (social transluscence, coordination systems, reputation systems, etc.). Think about SourceForge, BSCW, eBay, Virtual community systems, etc.

• Some other one are currently attracting a lot of attention today (Ontology), and should conduce to some tangible result in a not too far future.

• Other are more problematic (agents), but are very promissing in the longer term.



What’s in it for the e-governement?

• E-governement represents the perfect application field.

• Other topics of interest.• Identity. FIDIS (Future of IDentity in the Information

Society) NoE. Identy management is not only technical but span a variety of discipline and concepts (multiple identities, pseudonimity etc.).

• Open Source?• Blended KM. (combining online / offline)• Trust building, empowerment (transparency)• E-learning + integration• Etc.

Documents

«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems» Thierry Nabeth EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3