methodologies such as Computer Assisted Software Engineering (CASE). A common assumption in the past was that all relevant knowledge could be bundled up in nice, neat, easily accessible packages of “best practices” that practitioners could then “repeat.”
When we attack reuse as a knowledge management problem, we begin to ask new questions, or at least look for different avenues for finding solutions to the problem. How do we go about finding the component we need? How do we gain confidence that the component does what we want it to do and does not do strange things that we do not want? What is the distance (orga- nizationally or geographically) between the component developer and users?
Are there other people who have used this component whom we could talk to and learn from? Do we have access to the author of this component?
Have others found this component to be effective? How should we go about testing this component? How easily will this component integrate into our envi- ronment?
Dixon (2000) outlines factors that affect knowledge transfer: characteristics of the receiver (skills, shared language, technical knowledge), the nature of the task (routine, nonroutine), and the type of knowledge being transferred (a continuum from explicit to tacit). The author then identifies five categories of knowledge transfer that she has observed, from Near Transfer (“transferring knowledge from a source team to a receiving team that is doing a similar task in a similar context but in a different location”) to Serial Transfer (“the source team and the receiving team are one and the same”). Dixon then describes techniques that work well for each of these five types of transfer.
The objective of this chapter is not to describe the practices for knowledge transfer in detail, but rather to point out that merely coding a component and scratching out a few lines of documentation will rarely be enough to facilitate knowledge transfer. Other researchers such as Hatami, Galliers, and Huang (2003) found that a key to organizational success in the face of global com- petition is the ability to capture organizational learning, to effectively reuse the knowledge through efficient means, and to synthesize these into more intelli- gent problem recognition, strategic analysis, and choices in strategic directions.
By tapping into their organization’s memory, decision makers can make more intelligent business decisions. This is achieved when individuals access data, information, and knowledge residing in repositories. However, retrieval alone is not enough—knowledge application must follow, and the success of knowl- edge application appears to be a function of the characteristics of the individ- ual, the knowledge content, the purpose of reuse for the particular task at hand, and the organizational context or culture.
KNOWLEDGE APPLICATION AT THE
familiarity with the subject matter and their personality and cognitive styles.
Cohen and Levinthal (1990) found that sharing is more likely to occur when a foundation of prior relevant knowledge exists. A number of studies (e.g., Ford et al., 2002; Kuhlthau, 1993; Spink et al., 2002) found significant corre- lations between online searching behaviors and the cognitive styles of learners.
On the other hand, the business world heavily favors the use of instruments such as the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality style assessment (Myers et al., 1998) to assess differences in personality styles. Some research has been done to correlate MBTI type with knowledge-sharing behaviors.
Webb (1998), in a study of the consulting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers, showed that a strong outgoing personality was important in knowledge sharing regardless of qualifications and prior experience.
Characteristics of the individual who is seeking to apply or reuse knowl- edge are likely to play a role in how effective he or she is at finding, understanding, and making use of organizational knowledge. Individual char- acteristics may include, for example, personality style, their preferences regard- ing how individuals best learn, how they prefer to receive their information, as well as how they can best be helped to put the knowledge to work. This may range from something as simple as asking for and subse- quently accommodating the language the user prefers to work in to more sophisticated modeling of the user in terms of their abilities and their goals.
One good framework that is of use here is the Bloom taxonomy of learning objectives (Bloom, Mesia, and Krathwohl, 1964), which was designed to help teachers set learning goals for learning activities. The taxonomy can be easily adapted to knowledge application goals for each knowledge object in a repository.
One way of visualizing personalization is to think of the one-person company or the one-person library. All of the knowledge resources in a given repository can be made to appear as if they were there at the disposal of a given person, reflecting their preferences, their background, and so forth.
Figure 6-2 illustrates this concept of “many-to-one” interactions.
Personalization and profiling are currently a popular means of characteriz- ing visitors to a given website. This is particularly true of virtual stores where customer data can then be analyzed in order to improve marketing efforts.
However, in knowledge management we are less concerned with database mar- keting applications of personalization than with ensuring that information retrieval and knowledge application processes are tailor-made for each knowl- edge worker. The easier it is for a knowledge worker to find, understand, and internalize the knowledge, the greater their success in actually applying this knowledge. An alternative approach to user modeling is proposed in Figure 6-3.
Instead of using profiling technologies to better understand all customers, we can make use of similar techniques to follow or trace a given individual’s interactions with a number of corporate memory interfaces. This alternative approach will yield a user model that will help us to better understand the types of human-knowledge interactions that have occurred in order to opti- mize knowledge application within the organization. For example, push tech- nologies are based on user models that look at historical information requests
in order to push or automatically send out similar new content that becomes available.
We will need to be able to find and use content based on individuals’ per- sonal model, and how they perceive the knowledge world around them. This is often influenced by their particular background (e.g., IT vs. sociology), how long they have been in the company, how expert they are in the topic, as well as a whole spectrum of preferences ranging from the linguistic to the format they prefer to receive knowledge (e.g., visuals who prefer diagrams to those who prefer to read text). These are often represented as semantic networks (see Figures 6-4 and 6-5).
There are also systems that monitor users’ tasks online and interpret them in context, based on traces they leave behind. These systems work well for tasks that are well identified and where knowledge can be described in a clear ontology (e.g., a postal address template). In general, this approach is based on a user interacting with a computer system to perform a task that leads to changes in the system. An observer agent (a software routine) observes these changes according to an observation model to generate a log or trace of what the user has done. The trace is then analyzed to identify and extract significant
F
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I
LLUSTRATION OF THE PERSONALIZATION CONCEPT Personalization: many-to-one interactions...?
The one-person:
office store school library
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LTERNATIVE APPROACH TO PERSONALIZATIONVisitor 1 Visitor 2
Visitor 3
Visitor 4 Trace 1
Trace 2
Trace 3
Visitor 6 Visitor 5
User-centric profiling Instead of web-centric:
Web Server
F
IGURE6-4
E
XAMPLE OF A SEMANTIC NETWORKSubstance
Body
Inanimate Immaterial
Spirit
Mineral Living
Insensitive Plant Material
Animate
Animate
Animal
Rational Irrational
Beast Human
Socrates Plato Aristotle etc.
Supreme genus Differentiae Subordinate genera Differentiae Subordinate genera Differentiae
Differentiae Proximate genera
Species
Individuals
Tree of Porphyry, as it was drawn by the logician Peter of Spain (1329).
It illustrates the categories under substance, which is called the supreme genus or the most general category.
F
IGURE6-5
E
XAMPLE OF A SEMANTIC NETWORK(
CONTINUED)
Birds
Trees Worms Wings
Feathers build their nests in fly using their
eat
made of
episodes and interpret them according to explained task signatures. Each episode represents a pattern, and each pattern can be mapped onto a task, a subtask, or a more specific step that forms part of the subtask. For example, if the user is trying to locate, open, and print out a particular file, three dis- tinct episodes can be identified: behaviors related to locating, opening, and printing the file. These episodes can then be reused by assistant agents that help the user to do what they are trying to do. The assistance episodes themselves can also be reused in the future (see Figure 6-6). In this way, the system has modeled how users behave when they are undertaking these particular types of tasks.
The important factor to note here is that user modeling is an ongoing process, not a one-shot deal. Dynamic profiling systems need to be developed based on a mix of human and automated trace facilities, in order to be able to continually adapt to changes in the environment, changes in the organiza- tion, and changes in the individuals themselves (e.g., different job responsibil- ities, different preferences, new competencies, and new interests).
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives
Bloom (1956) divided knowledge into a hierarchical scheme that distin- guishes between psychomotor skills, the affective domain (e.g., attitudes), and
F
IGURE6-6
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YNAMIC PROFILING SYSTEM DESIGNAnalyze Data
(sequence, time,
frequency,....) Data Resellers (e.g., Polk, SRI)
Demographics, pyschographics
Forms
Fill out
Data Warehouse
Sales, operational data
Capture Log File Data
From cookies, Internet, intranet, personal devices, different countries, times...
Validate Dynamic
User Profile Behavior
Model
the cognitive domain (e.g., knowledge). The cognitive domain is more com- monly used, although attitudinal changes are often required in knowledge man- agement too. Bloom emphasizes that learning is hierarchical, with learning (objectives) at the highest level dependent on the achievement of lower-level knowledge and skills first.
The cognitive domain taxonomy is shown in Table 6-1. The levels from low to high are: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
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B
LOOMT
AXONOMY OF THEC
OGNITIVED
OMAINLevel Description Action verbs that can be
used
1 Knowledge Remembering of previously Recall, repeat, define, describe, learned material. list, identify, label, match,
name, state.
2 Comprehension Ability to grasp the meaning of Classify, convert, discuss, material (e.g., translating from explain, generalize, give an one form to another, estimating example of, paraphrase, restate future trends, explaining or in your own words, summarize, giving examples of). review.
3 Application Ability to use learned material Articulate, assess, chart, in new and concrete situations computer construct, determine, by applying rules, methods, develop, discover, establish, concepts, principles, laws, and extend, operationalize, theories. participate, predict, provide,
show, solve, use, apply, demonstrate, sketch, practice, illustrate.
4 Analysis Ability to break down material Break down, correlate, diagram, into its component parts so differentiate, discriminate, that its organizational structure distinguish, focus, infer, outline, may be understood. point out, recognize, separate, Identification of parts, subdivide, compare, contrast, relationships between parts, inspect, inventory, relate, recognition of organizational examine.
principles.
5 Synthesis Ability to put parts together to Adapt, categorize, collaborate, form a new whole. Creative combine, communicate, compile, behaviors stressed in the compose, create, design, devise, formulation of something new. facilitate, formulate, generate,
incorporate, individualize, initiate, integrate, model, plan, propose, assemble, organize.
6 Evaluation Ability to judge the value of Appraise, conclude, criticize, material based on definite decide, defend, judge, justify, criteria. support, evaluate, rate, value,
score, prioritize, select.
Source: Adapted from Bloom, 1956.
The affective domain includes the manner in which we deal with things emo- tionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes. The five major categories are listed in Table 6-2.
The psychomotor domain includes physical movement, coordination, and use of the motor skills areas. Development of these skills requires practice and is measured in terms of speed, precision, distance, procedures, or techniques in execution. The seven major categories are listed in Table 6-3.
These taxonomic categories can be used “inside out” to help understand what users are trying to do. The level of internalization can be identified for effective performance; for example, one can set a minimum threshold that must be reached in order for the worker to be able to understand and make appro- priate use of the knowledge object. This feature can in turn be incorporated into a user model. The Bloom taxonomy serves as a means of determining not only what knowledge workers are expected to do (usually referred to as skills or expertise) but also the level of performance that is expected (also referred to as mastery level). For example, by using the cognitive skill portion of the Bloom taxonomy, it is possible to characterize a particular knowledge object, say, a best practice procedure on how best to present a project team members’
resumes when preparing a project proposal. The knowledge worker who pre- pares the bid is expected to have a level of understanding that allows for the critical judgment needed to execute this task at the required proficiency level.
He or she must not only be skilled in the selection of team members to be included in the proposal but also be able to repackage their resumes in the form that has been shown to be the best based on past successes. Another example, using the affective domain Bloom taxonomy, once again can make use of this best practice but this time address the best way to judge whether candidates who meet the technical skill requirements also possess the appro- priate “soft skills,” such as being a good team player, having a collaborative approach to work, and not hoarding knowledge or claiming individual credit for group work.
The Bloom taxonomy provides a good basis for assessing knowledge appli- cation. All too often in KM, simply having accessed content is taken to mean that knowledge workers are using (and reusing) this content. It is far more useful to assess the impact that the knowledge residing in the knowledge base has had on learning, understanding, and “buying in” to a new way of doing things. Only through changes in behavior can knowledge use be inferred; the taxonomy provides a more detailed framework to evaluate the extent to which knowledge has been internalized (using the Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, model). For example, at the lower cognitive skill levels, simply being aware that knowledge exists within the organization is easily observed when knowl- edge workers are able to locate the content within a knowledge repository.
Access is typically tracked using log file statistics, which are similar to the number of hits or visitors that a website has attracted. Knowledge application, however, requires that knowledge workers have attained much higher levels of comprehension such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Only at these levels can knowledge be said to truly be applied. In contrast to someone who can point to a template in the knowledge base, knowledge application will be
T
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A
FFECTIVED
OMAIN ASC
HARACTERIZED IN THEB
LOOMT
AXONOMYReceiving phenomena: Awareness, Examples: Listen to others with respect. Listen willingness to hear, selected for and remember the name of newly
attention. introduced people.
Key words: asks, chooses, describes, follows, gives, holds, identifies, locates, names, points to, selects, sits, erects, replies, uses.
Responding to phenomena: Active Examples: Participates in class discussions. Gives participation on the part of the a presentation. Questions new ideals,
learners. Attends and reacts to a concepts, models, and so on in order to fully particular phenomenon. Learning understand them. Knows the safety rules and outcomes may emphasize practices them.
compliance in responding, Key words: answers, assists, aids, complies, willingness to respond, or conforms, discusses, greets, helps, labels, satisfaction in responding performs, practices, presents, reads, recites, (motivation). reports, selects, tells, writes.
Valuing: The worth or value a person Examples: Demonstrates belief in the democratic attaches to a particular object, process. Is sensitive toward individual and phenomenon, or behavior. This cultural differences (value diversity). Shows ranges from simple acceptance to the ability to solve problems. Proposes a plan the more complex state of to social improvement and follows through commitment. Valuing is based on with commitment. Informs management on the internalization of a set of matters that one feels strongly about.
specified values, while clues to Key words: completes, demonstrates, these values are expressed in the differentiates, explains, follows, forms, learner’s overt behavior and are initiates, invites, joins, justifies, proposes, often identifiable. reads, reports, selects, shares, studies, works.
Organization: Organizes values into Examples: Recognizes the need for balance priorities by contrasting different between freedom and responsible behavior.
values, resolving conflicts between Accepts responsibility for one’s behavior.
them, and creating a unique value Explains the role of systematic planning in system. The emphasis is on solving problems. Accepts professional ethical comparing, relating, and standards. Creates a life plan in harmony synthesizing values. with abilities, interests, and beliefs. Prioritizes
time effectively to meet the needs of the organization, family, and self.
Key words: adheres, alters, arranges, combines, compares, completes, defends, explains, formulates, generalizes, identifies, integrates, modifies, orders, organizes, prepares, relates, synthesizes.
Internalizing values (characterization): Examples: Shows self-reliance when working Has a value system that controls independently. Cooperates in group activities their behavior. The behavior is (displays teamwork). Uses an objective pervasive, consistent, predictable, approach in problem solving. Displays a and, most importantly, professional commitment to ethical practice characteristic of the learner. on a daily basis. Revises judgments and Instructional objectives are changes behavior in light of new evidence.
concerned with the student’s Values people for what they are, not how general patterns of adjustment they look.
(personal, social, emotional). Key words: acts, discriminates, displays, influences, listens, modifies, performs, practices, proposes, qualifies, questions, revises, serves, solves, verifies.
Source: Adapted from Bloom, 1956.
T
ABLE6-3
B
LOOMT
AXONOMY OF THEP
SYCHOMOTORD
OMAIN Perception: The ability to use sensory Examples: Detects nonverbal communicationcues to guide motor activity. This cues. Estimates where a ball will land ranges from sensory stimulation, after it is thrown and then moves to the through cue selection, to translation. correct location to catch the ball. Adjusts
heat of stove to correct temperature by smell and taste of food. Adjusts the height of the forks on a forklift by comparing where the forks are in relation to the pallet.
Key words: chooses, describes, detects, differentiates, distinguishes, identifies, isolates, relates, selects.
Set: Readiness to act. It includes mental, Examples: Knows and acts upon a sequence physical, and emotional sets. These of steps in a manufacturing process.
three sets are dispositions that Recognizes one’s abilities and limitations.
predetermine a person’s response to Shows desire to learn a new process different situations (sometimes called (motivation). Note: This subdivision of
mind-sets). psychomotor is closely related to the
“Responding to phenomena” subdivision of the affective domain.
Key words: begins, displays, explains, moves, proceeds, reacts, shows, states, volunteers.
Guided response: The early stages in Examples: Performs a mathematical learning a complex skill that equation as demonstrated. Follows includes imitation and trial and instructions to build a model. Responds to error. Adequacy of performance is hand signals of instructor while learning achieved by practicing. to operate a forklift.
Key words: copies, traces, follows, reacts, reproduces, responds.
Mechanism: The intermediate Examples: Uses a personal computer.
stage in learning a complex skill. Repairs a leaking faucet. Drives a car.
Learned responses have become Key words: assembles, calibrates, constructs, habitual, and the movements can be dismantles, displays, fastens, fixes, grinds, performed with some confidence heats, manipulates, measures, mends,
and proficiency. mixes, organizes, sketches.
Complex overt response: The skillful Examples: Maneuvers a car into a tight performance of motor acts that parallel parking spot. Operates a
involve complex movement patterns. computer quickly and accurately. Displays Proficiency is indicated by a quick, competence playing the piano.
accurate, and highly coordinated Key words: assembles, builds, calibrates, performance, requiring a minimum of constructs, dismantles, displays, fastens, energy. This category includes fixes, grinds, heats, manipulates, measures, performing without hesitation and mends, mixes, organizes, sketches. Note:
automatic performance. For example, The key words are the same as players often utter sounds of Mechanism, but will have adverbs or satisfaction or expletives as soon as adjectives that indicate that the they hit a tennis ball or throw a performance is quicker, better, more football because they can tell by the accurate, and so on.
feel of the act what the result will produce.
Continued