Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Enhancing Knowledge
Management Systems with
Cognitive Agents
Thierry NABETH, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
INSEAD CALT – The Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies,
Fontainebleau, France
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
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 (many pressures to do more
with less) and at all the levels (organisation, group,
individual).
• New approaches have appeared, «promising» to change
this situation (learning networks, ontology, knowledge
ecology, personalization, etc. … and agents).
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Objective of this presentation
Objective of this presentation
•To present on how cognitive agents can help in
the design of the next generation knowledge
management systems better able to support the
Knowledge intensive organizations at the
organizational, group and individual level.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Structure of this presentation
• Analyse the reasons for the relative failure of
Knowledge management system.
• Indicate the direction for the next generation
knowledge management systems.
• Present the concept of the cognitive agent.
• Indicate how cognitive agent can help in the design of
this next-generation knowledge management systems.
• Next steps
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Analysis of the failure
Why knowledge management has
not (yet?) fulfilled the
expectations
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
The reasons of the failure:
The Reasons of the failure:
• A two narrow technological vision (let’s create a big
database; it is just a matter of tools).
• A too shallow 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).
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Some Myths 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).
• 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.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
A vision for better
Knowledge Management
Systems
What are the needs,
What are the solutions
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
A vision for the future: (the needs)
The needs:
• Encompassing 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).
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
A vision for the future (some directions)
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 actively them in the
dynamic of knowledge processes (stimulation).
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
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.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
The agents
Defining the concepts
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
The agents (defining the concept)
•
What is an agent
•
The reasons for using agents
•
Agent technologies & approaches
•
Application of agents in Knowledge Management
•
•
•
•
Perception, autonomy, social ability, proactiveness
Designing complex active applications (distributed
control, integrated with human organization)
Middleware but also models have been developed
Automating search, mediation mechanisms etc.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
The agents (definition)
Characteristic of agenthood (Wooldridge & Jennings)
•
•
•
•
•
Perception of the environment
Autonomy (self-direction)
Social ability (capability to interact with other
entities)
Proactiveness (initiative)
Other properties (not mandatory):
• Consciousness, intelligence, adaptability, etc.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
The cognitive agents
Cognitive agent: Agent + some properties of
consciousness:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Belief
Desires
Intentions
Believability
Maintain a high level state of the environment
Explicit semantic
Why to use cognitive agents:
•
•
They are able to support more deeply the human process
The concept they manipulate are more similar to the
human concept.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
The cognitive agents (architectures)
Pioneer: The SOAR system (Laird, Newel &
Rosenbloom)
•
•
•
Very complex
Rule based (mainly).
New architectures have appeared:
•
•
•
•
ConAg, Boid, ICARUS, etc.
Further develop agent «brain» model (BDI, etc.)
Evolutivity/adaptability/learning sometime built-in
(ecology of behaviours)
Semantic web oriented (ontology, semantic network, …)
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Cognitive agents for
Knowledge Management
Or how they can contribute to
design KM systems more
personalised, socially aware and
cognitive&active
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
The cognitive agents for KM activities
Social agents
The role of these agents is to support the social
dimension. (group level).
•
Social translucence agents, facilitators, aggregators, etc.
Process agents
Support the knowledge management processes of the
organization. (organisational level)
•
Automating the tasks, etc.
Personal agents
Support the knowledge worker. (individual level)
•
Supporting the individual
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
The cognitive agents for KM activities (illustrations)
Social agents
EdComNet project (supporting learning network in
municipalities – for the citizen).
•
Social translucence agents, group forming agents, etc.
Process agents
KInCA (Agent for transforming behaviours & attitudes
– towards the knowledge sharing organization)
•
Pedagogical agents intervening in the activity.
Personal agents
Ontologging
•
Ontology-based User modelling and agents for KM.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Next steps
Where are we now?
Where are we heading to?
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
When will these mechanisms be available?
•
Some of them already present (social translucence,
social collaboration filtering, interface agents, etc.).
•
Some other one are currently attracting a lot of
attention today (personalization / contextualization in
particular in e-learning, personal agents, …).
•
Other are still in the Labs (emotional agents, agent
for decision making, etc.).
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Annexes
• Myths to be challenged
• The technical mechanisms
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Annexes 1
Some myths to be Challenged
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Some Myths 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.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
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.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
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.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
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).
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
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.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Annexes 2
Executing the vision of designing
personalized, socially aware
and cognitive & active
Knowledge Management systems
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
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.
+ Tools are not enough. Provide methodology.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
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: Privacy issues
• However, better knowing people also brings the
possibility to better serve them
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Personalising the interaction (2)
Technologies & Researches conducted in this direction
•
Key technologies used: Ontology (modelling 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:
• Ontology-based KM, (deep user modelling via
ontology)
• next generation e-learning systems able to take
into account the context
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Supporting the social dimension
Key concepts & means.
•
Supporting different modes of Communication
(synchronous, asynchronous).
•
Social translucence: Making the social activity visible
(social pressure, trust building, motivation, etc).
•
Deep support for the social processes: facilitation,
recommender & opinion, group formation.
•
Managing the cultural transformation (i.e. attitude
transformation for sharing knowledge), incentives etc.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Supporting the social dimension (2)
Technologies & research
•
Communication tools (mail, bulletin board chats, etc.), …
Virtual community systems.
•
Social translucence & navigation tools. Provide real-time
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 coordination tools (technical or not technical).
Example: moderation, facilitation, structure, etc.
•
Change management (transforming people attitude).
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Deep & Proactive support for knowledge activities
Technologies & research
•
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
agents, KInCA project (change management)
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004
Deep & Proactive support for knowledge activities (2)
Technologies & research
•
Agents that exploit the social traces to intervene
proactively and stimulate the social activities.
•
Electronic circulation folders (BSCW)
•
Interactive experiences (role playing & multi-users
virtual reality)
•
Etc.
«Enhancing Knowledge Management Systems with Cognitive Agents»
Thierry Nabeth, Albert A. Angehrn, Claudia Roda
Journée de recherche de l’AIM, France, 26 March 2004