Knowledge net : a support for sharing knowledge within an organisation

Abstract

Knowledge is today considered the most valuable asset in many organisations. Especially larger organisations may know what competencies they have but not where within the organisation or with whom they can be found. If the knowledge of an organisation can be made accessible within the organisation then the knowledge could be more effectively used. To support the sharing of knowledge many attempts have been made to store individuals’ knowledge (often called organisational memory systems). This thesis focuses on the alternative idea of a so-called knowledge net. In a knowledge net information about “who-knows-what”, rather than “what” itself, is stored. The focus in a knowledge net lies on individuals’ knowledge. A rating method is used to find persons with the “right” knowledge (not necessarily the one who knows most) about a topic. Each “member” chooses what to contribute with to the knowledge net implying a willingness to share the knowledge with others. A knowledge net also includes facilities to contact the suggested “experts”. Three studies have been carried out to reach an understanding of how a knowledge net can be designed. In the first study personal home pages on the World Wide Web were explored to see what information people include and how such pages are used. This was a first step in finding what information people would include and/or find useful in a knowledge net. In the second study a prototype of parts of a knowledge net was implemented and evaluated with users. Topics could be entered and related to each other, and one’s knowledge about a topic could be rated. One idea behind this study was to investigate if it is possible to describe the knowledge a person has in such a way that a context for the knowledge is included and, thereby, making it possible to find the person most suitable for the task. The third study was an ethnographic investigation of knowledge sharing in an organisation. Among the findings were that on personal home pages the subjects were willing to present themselves in a way that is of interest for a knowledge net. The subjects tended to be willing to keep their home page up-to-date. Topics entered into the knowledge net prototype were on a rather high level of abstraction. When rating their knowledge about topics, the subjects wanted to be able to specify what parts of the topic their knowledge concerned. Thus, the rating of knowledge seems to help people specify what they know. The software designers that took part in the third study had a rather local contact net that they used frequently. A knowledge net could be one way of extending the number of “experts” to contact. The results suggest that the knowledge net approach is useful and realizable, and that it in many cases may facilitate the management of knowledge within an organisation. There are still aspects of how a knowledge net should be designed that need to be further investigated, e.g., how one can search the knowledge net and how the results can be presented. How a knowledge net can be supported by management in an organisation is also an important issue.

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