EGov E ’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
Towards Personalized, Socially
Aware and Active Knowledge
Management Systems
Thierry NABETH
INSEAD CALT – The Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies,
Fontainebleau, France
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 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, 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?)
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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 nextgeneration 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?
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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).
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 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).
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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).
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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).
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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).
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 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 in the perspective of the e-government:
• Better knowing people also brings the possibility to
better serve them
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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)
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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).
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 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
agent, KInCA project (change management)
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
Deep & Proactive support for knowledge activities (2)
Technologies & research
•
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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004
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.
«Towards Personalized, Socially Aware and Active Knowledge Management Systems»
Thierry Nabeth
EGov Europe’2004, Noordwijk aan Zee, The Netherland, 1-3 March 2004