Richard C. Hicks

The five‐tier knowledge management hierarchy

Purpose – Many terms commonly used in the field of knowledge management (KM) have multiple uses and sometimes conflicting definitions because they are adapted from other research streams. Discussions of the various hierarchies of data, information, knowledge, and other related terms, although of value, are limited in providing support for KM. The purpose of this this paper is to define a new set of terminology and develop a five‐tier knowledge management hierarchy (5TKMH) that can provide guidance to managers involved in KM efforts.Design/methodology/approach – The 5TKMH is developed by extending the knowledge hierarchy to include an individual and an innovation tier.Findings – The 5TKMH includes all of the types of KM identified in the literature, provides a tool for evaluating the KM effort in a firm, identifies the relationships between knowledge sources, and provides an evolutionary path for KM efforts within the firm.Research limitations/implications – The 5TKMH has not been formally tested.Practical...

A metaphor for knowledge management: explicit islands in a tacit sea

– This paper aims to examine the current thoughts on knowledge management (KM) and to develop a metaphor to combine these thoughts in a new way that effectively conveys the different types of knowledge and ways of managing it., – The literature on the transition of data to knowledge is reviewed. A popular paradigm in KM states that data are integrated to create information and information is integrated to create knowledge. This paradigm is represented as a pyramid‐shaped hierarchy with knowledge at the top, information in the middle, and data on the bottom. Why this paradigm is a simplistic and limited view of knowledge and KM is discussed., – The “explicit islands in a tacit sea (EITS)” metaphor is explained and discussed in the context of knowledge and knowledge management (KM)., – The EITS metaphor more accurately and completely describes knowledge in the context of KM. The practical implications of this metaphor are its flexibility and transparency of the transitional actions that affect the evolution of data to knowledge., – The EITS metaphor is an evolution of the prevailing frameworks and removes the apparent limitations in earlier frameworks. The paper provides a paradigm shift in the discussion of KM.

The no inference engine theory - Performing conflict resolution during development

In many rule-based systems, an inference engine is a software component which reasons over rules when the application is executed. The major task performed by the inference engine is conflict resolution, which determines the sequence of the consultation. We describe a theory and the resulting development environment for performing conflict resolution during development to eliminate the inference engine for systems using propositional logic. Using verification criteria and solution strategies, we derive four classes of rules and their rule ordering strategies, allowing conflict resolution to be performed during development. The resultant procedural implementations demonstrate dramatic performance improvements for some classes of rules, testing over 20,000 rules per s on a PC.

Knowledge base management systems-tools for creating verified intelligent systems

As automation of business processes becomes more complex and encompasses less-structured domains, it becomes even more essential that the knowledge used by these processes is verified and accurate. Most application development is facilitated with software tools, but most business rules and expert systems are developed in environments that provide inadequate verification testing. This paper describes an emerging class of applications we refer to as Knowledge Base Management Systems (KBMS). The KMBS provides a full life-cycle environment for the development and verification of business rule and expert systems. We will present an overview of knowledge base verification, the KBMS life-cycle, and the architecture for a KBMS. We then describe building a small expert system in the KBMS, with emphasis on the verification testing at each stage. We conclude with a summary of the benefits of a KBMS.

The enterprise knowledge dictionary

One of the difficulties in knowledge management is that knowledge sources are widely distributed and exist in many forms. Earls taxonomy (2001) of knowledge management systems, particularly, the Technocratic school – Systems, Cartographic, and Engineering, is described to provide a context for discussing the different types of knowledge management systems. To support these different types of knowledge sources, we describe an Enterprise Knowledge Dictionary (EKD) and the supporting n-tier architecture that allows access too many types of knowledge though a common interface. The EKD provides a knowledge portal that allows the knowledge seeker to locate and access the various types of knowledge for a domain of interest from a single source. In addition to facilitating knowledge reuse, the EKD is used for evaluation and planning of knowledge management activities within the firm. An n-tier architecture that both optimizes knowledge management implementations and minimizes the load on transaction processing systems is outlined.

Faculty perceptions of communications channels: a survey

Individual communication between faculty and students outside of the classroom is one of the cornerstones of education. This survey examines the perceptions of the faculty of three communications media for several communication tasks that occur between students and faculty. The faculty at a small Texas state university was invited to participate in a survey that elicited their perceptions on the effectiveness of telephone, face to face, and e-mail communication. In this survey, the relevant results are that faculty expressed a preference for e-mail for convenience, retention, and efficiency. Office hours were preferred for confrontation, confidentiality, and emotional support. Equal preference for e-mail and office hours were expressed for accuracy, receiving work, reaching a consensus, and overall effectiveness. The same preference for the three communication channels (office hours, e-mail, and phone) was expressed for the timeliness criterion. These preferences are then evaluated to determine managerial implications for innovation and learning.