Semantic Interoperability for Enhancing Sharing and Learning through E-Government Knowledge-Intensive Portal Services

E-Government emerges from web sites that offer static information, documents and forms for employees and citizens, enquiries, and process automations to many types of stakeholders. Increasingly, different layers of government services are being consolidated into a knowledge portal, providing on time and online services. Such knowledge portals not only provide a platform for integrating applications and information from all government sources, but also provide platforms for knowledge sharing and learning to the public with the objective to improve the efficiency and the quality of E-Government processes and services. However, due to the heterogeneity of applications and information across different levels of government agencies, a significant amount of work is needed to re-configure such applications and services into a new platform. However, semantics are often deficient, which results in problems establishing effective knowledge sharing and learning in E-Government. This paper confers how knowledge intensive portals can be used for enhancing sharing and learning in E-Government. The authors discuss innovative information on how the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technologies can be applied in providing interoperability to leverage knowledge sharing and learning activities.

Exploring the Enterprise Value of Wikis through Media Choice Theories

Wikis are quickly emerging as a new corporate medium for communication and collaboration. They allow dispersed groups of collaborators to asynchronously engage in persistent conversations, the result of which is stored on a common server as a single, shared truth. To gauge the enterprise value of wikis, the authors draw on Media Choice Theories (MCTs) as an evaluation framework. MCTs reveal core capabilities of communication media and their fit with the communication task. Based on the evaluation, the authors argue that wikis are equivalent or superior to existing asynchronous communication media in key characteristics. Additionally argued is the notion that wiki technology challenges some of the held beliefs of existing media choice theories, as wikis introduce media characteristics not previously envisioned. The authors thus predict a promising future for wiki use in enterprises.

Meta-Synthesis Knowledge System

Meta-synthesis knowledge system (MSKS) is based on the meta-synthesis system approach and knowledge science. This article introduces the basic theory of meta-synthesis knowledge system like DMTMC system, model integration, opinion synthesis, consensus building and expert mining. Similar MSKS systems are illustrated. Case studies and examples are also explored in this article.

Towards The New Episteme

The usual horizon of knowledge science is limited to nominalism, empiricism, and naturalistic and evolutionary epistemologies. I propose to broaden this horizon by applying some other philosophical attitudes, such as a non-nominalistic philosophy of language. A basic methodology for the new episteme, including (non-nominalistic) typology and a definition of knowledge and of tacit knowledge, is proposed. Several types of knowledge and the corresponding tacit knowledge are discussed within a broadened philosophical context. There are many types of knowledge and tacit knowledge using different methods of sharing. The main problem with the effective sharing of tacit knowledge is sharing knowledge relevant to the given problem. The transfer, change and transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge are possible. An example of such a transition, which I call conceptualization, is described. Conceptualization exemplifies how new knowledge can be created with the use of tacit knowledge. A need also exists for a professional collaboration between knowledge science, knowledge management and philosophy.

Knowledge Crash and Knowledge Management

Population ageing is a phenomenon that is quite new and irreversible in the history of mankind. Every country and every organisation is concerned while it is not certain that all the risks and challenges have been clearly identified. Clearly, there is a risk of massive knowledge loss, i.e., “Knowledge Crash”, due to massive retirements, but not exclusively for this reason. This risk is not evaluated at the right level, and in this regard, this article, by including the problem of “Knowledge Crash” in the more general framework of “Knowledge Management”, enlarges the concepts of knowledge, generation, and knowledge transfer. The author proposes a global approach, starting from a strategic analysis of a knowledge capital and ending in the implementation of socio-technical devices for inter-generational knowledge transfer.

A Rough-Sets Approach to Kansei Evaluation Modeling and Design Support

This paper proposes a Kansei modeling technique by using the Rough-sets Theory based on a set of evaluation data for Kutani-ware coffee cups. Kutani-ware is a famous traditional craft that is a very important traditional industry in Japan. However, it has been shrinking recently because of the changes in lifestyle or the appearance of more functional modern products. To reactivate this industry by developing and recommending products that attract people’s feelings, this study develops a modeling technique for identifying relations between design and feeling by obtaining some if-and-then rules. An important contribution of the paper is that the proposed technique can suggest new designs by analyzing customers’ Kansei requirements, which are not used in the evaluation experiment. This makes the recommendation successful by determining people’s Kansei into data instead of attempts.

Exploration and Exploitation in Parallel Problem Solving

In previous studies on coordinating exploration-exploitation activities, much attention has been paid on network structures while the roles played by actors’ strategic behavior have been largely ignored. In this paper, the authors extend March’s simulation model on parallel problem solving by adding structurally equivalent imitation. In this way, one can examine how the interaction of network structure with agent behavior affects the knowledge process and finally influence group performance. This simulation experiment suggests that under the condition of regular network, the classical trade-off between exploration and exploitation will appear in the case of the preferentially attached network when agents adopt structure equivalence imitation. The whole organization implicitly would be divided into independent sub-groups that converge on different performance level and lead the organization to a lower performance level. The authors also explored the performance in the mixed organization and the management implication.

Systems Approach to Knowledge Synthesis

This article presents a systems approach to knowledge synthesis or construction, starting with a new systems thinking named the informed systems thinking, which should serve as the basic tool of knowledge integration and support creativity. Based on this new systems thinking, a new systems approach to knowledge synthesis or construction has been developed as a systems methodology that consists of three fundamental parts: how to collect and synthesize knowledge, how to use our abilities in collecting knowledge, and how to justify the synthesized knowledge. This article first describes the informed systems thinking and then introduces a new systems approach to knowledge synthesis and the features of this new approach from a viewpoint of knowledge creation.

Are We Stuck With Knowledge Management?

This is a conceptual paper offering an approach to apparent practitioner and academic dissatisfaction with the field of Knowledge Management (KM). Discussing definitions of knowledge, the drivers for its value as an organisational resource and comparing these against definitions of Knowledge Management, this paper suggests a divergence between operational needs and KM as the medium for coordination. Offering an historical perspective of knowledge as a resource it suggests KM to be too broad a concept to be effective in fulfilling the needs of organisations. The authors suggest a continuum for knowledge resource development from which Strategic Knowledge Resource Development is offered as a potential solution for current unsatisfaction.

A Theory of Learning for the Creation and Management of Knowledge in Learning Communities and Organizations

Social sciences have been in crisis for a long time, partly by being the captive of the Newtonian paradigm, and partly through the effects of this paradigm on practice. This crisis was recognized in the past by the Russian psychologist and philosopher Lev Vygotsky, and continues to this day. The educational crisis is just one instance. It is hard to imagine how to escape this crisis, and a real shift of paradigm is needed. In this article, such a shift toward the paradigm of complexity is advocated. The shift implies a reframing of complexity and a new kind of thinking in complexity. The new paradigm implies the development of a causally generative complexity theory of change and development. Ultimately, the fundamental challenge is to harness the complexity of complex, generative learning in the communities of learners in learning organizations.