Intranets, Portals and Organizing Knowledge
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Transcript of Intranets, Portals and Organizing Knowledge
Intranets, Portals and Organizing Knowledge
Presentation by -Krishnan N Ayyer
Intranets
What are Intranets?• Intranet is Intra+ Net so an Intranet
is an internal or private Internet used strictly within the confines of a company, university, or organization. "Inter" means "between or among," hence the difference between the Internet and an Intranet.
Intranets
Some formal definitions of Intranets• Brown & Duguid: “Intranets help present
and circulate boundary objects”• Choo, Detlor, & Turnbull: “Intranets…
support the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge”
• Stenmark: “Intranets are organizationally restricted”
Intranets
A technical definition• An Intranet is a network based on the
internet TCP/IP open standard. An intranet belongs to an organization, and is designed to be accessible only by the organization's members, employees, or others with authorization. An intranet's Web site looks and act just like other Web sites, but has a firewall surrounding it to fend off unauthorized users.
Design Of Intranets
Steps• Analyze the organization’s
information ecology• Identify the typical problems
experienced by users• Analyze the information behaviors of
these set of users• Create value added processes to
resolve the problems of users and to improve the Information Ecology.
Information Ecology
• Organizational mission• Intranet goals• Information management plans• Information Culture• Information Politics• Physical settings• Information Staff• Information handling
Information Behaviors
• Identify Information users and their information seeking characteristics.
• Dimensionalize the structure of work related problems they typically face.
• Chronicle and examine the information behaviors and practices they employ to resolve problems.
Value Added Processes
• Intranets may be designed to improve the organizational information ecology.
• Intranets provide a unified information space in which users can communicate and collaborate with others.
• intranet applications and services may add value by supporting the organization’s knowledge creating and decision making process
Annotate
• Annotate is a specific Knowledge management support system (KMSS) designed to support the KM of document collections. It is a collaborative tool which enhances Information retrieval.
• Annotate in an Intranet increases the throughput by increasing the flow of relevant information across business units.
Components of KMSS
• Data or Knowledge Warehouse.• Knowledge Search and discovery
mechanisms.• Knowledge representation via an
ontology.• Knowledge Quality Control.• Knowledge Visualization techniques.
Search Navigation Chain
Layers • Query Layer• Retrival Layer• Document Layer
Annotate
Annotate
Annotate
Policies to manage discussions
• Incentives and rewards for adding annotations, Conversely sanctions for non participation.
• The level of anonymity of the annotator can be specified as anonymous, semi-anonymous or non-anonymous.
• Annotation controls must be imposed.
Organizing Knowledge
• To take a knowledge based view of the firm as opposed to the traditional transaction costs view.
• Knowledge is generated by communities of practice , which are social often informal organizations.
• Communities of practice are organized around knowledge sharing.
Organizing Knowledge
• Collective practice leads to form of Collective Knowledge, shared sensemaking and distributed understanding that does not reduce the content of individual heads .
• Improved search and retrieval facilitates better Knowledge transfer.
• Knowledge is not easily commodified, as in the market model.
Social Strategies for spreading Knowledge
• Translators framing one communities interest into
another's perspective.• Knowledge brokers bridging internal communities by
participating.• Boundary Objects objects or techniques that are used
differently but forge links between the communities.
eg-Contracts
Creative Intranet
• Intranets are suitable for supporting and facilitating corporate creativity and the knowledge creation process.
• Organizational knowledge is created through a continuous and dynamic interpersonal interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi). They call it the “Knowledge Spiral”.
• The Knowledge Spiral includes activities like sharing of experiences, exchanging explicit knowledge and embodying by “learning by doing”.
Key factors for creativity
• Non Preconception principle It is impossible to know who will be
involved in a creative act, when it will take place or how it will occur.
• To encourage shrunk work Creativity is aided by low
formalization and larger degrees of freedom.
Key factors for creativity
• Serendipity
An accident can result in a useful innovation only if the potential is realized.
organizations should encourage tinkering and experiments.
• Diverse Stimuli expose employees to cross disciplinary
input (kaleiodoscope thinking)
Key factors for creativity
• Within company communication. Use horizontal and vertical
communication to facilitate the flow of information.
Create a helping and sharing culture• Trust and Reciprocity
Key factors for creativity
• Intrinsic motivation When people are primarily motivated
by their own interest and enjoyment in the job it breeds creativity.
• Rich Information provision Browsing and Information Retrieval
techniques.
Next generation KM applications
Data Mining Applications• Biography generator summarizes information about the
author based on the documents in the system.
• Rate of Absorption It demonstrates how quickly a
group within an organization incorporates a new subject area.
Next Generation KM applications
• Old Boys Network is a network on who knows who
internally based on discussions• Communities Of Practice grouping people based on their
recent involvement in a particular subject area and the level of expertise.
Corporate Portals
• Corporate portals are single point web browser interfaces used within organizations to promote the gathering, sharing and dissemination of information throughout the organization.
• Corporate portals differ from intranets in that a portals primary function is to provide a transparent directory of information available elsewhere not act as a separate source of information itself.
Components of a portals workspace
• Content space To facilitate information access and
retrieval• Communication space To negotiate collective interpretations
and shared meanings• Coordinate space To support co-operative work action.
Conclusion
• Merely establishling various technological tools like Intranets does not imply that Knowledge will flow within an organization, people have to be committed to the KM efforts for it to succeed.
Any Questions?