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Extended Concept Mapping Tools for building sharable content objects for Digital Repository Applications
4. Processes and Mechanisms for Problem solving in the Knowledge space
Mechanisms for reuse and repurposing of knowledge when used in a knowledge repository is seen as offering a method for ensuring that innovation is captured and disseminated quickly, helping the organisation to remain at the leading edge. Knowledge workers need to be skilled in reusing the concept objects and preparing their own knowledge extensions, solutions to facilitate reuse by others.
The affordances of new technology and geographic distribution of resource persons, experts and knowledge workers provide greater opportunity and motivation for knowledge building and its use in problem solving to be conducted, at least in part, as a collaborative, distributed activity. A large amount of current research is concerned with developing tools and methodologies to support problem solving teams separated by space and time
XC-Map enable such collaborative and networking process to facilitate professionals involved in constructing, elaborating and evaluating a range of candidate representations and solutions. Roles, responsibilities, aspects, features, associations etc between and among concept objects gets defined iteratively with the use of XC-Map. Collapse and expansion on the concept nodes, reorganisation of concept nodes with a specific node in focus is possible.
Preparing users for using knowledge repositories is much more than enabling them to access the necessary domain knowledge. Users may also need to facilitate the processes of tacit knowledge capture using mechanisms and tools such as XC-Map that are provided as part of the knowledge repository. The proposed approach will promote the development of skills required in professional practice, in particular for
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Learning by gaining feedback on experience.
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Evaluating alternative approaches to the same problem.
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Reusing knowledge contained in past cases, and facilitating the reuse of solutions.
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Working in a collaborative and distributed setting.
Much of the knowledge used in professional domains is tacit, knowledge-in-action. This represents the "know how" of how to put knowledge into practice. In order to accumulate knowledge from experience, there is a need to gain feedback on the professional work undertaken by others or by the user in the past and to effectively reflect on such insights.
The nature of the problems solved by the users, and the range of ideas contained in the cases, promotes the view that there is no single right answer to a problem, and the design process involves interpreting claims made in solution cases, assessing different approaches to the same problem and making trade-offs between them.
5. Capabilities and Performance of the XC-Map
The performance capabilities of the XC-Map can be briefly summarized as under :
GUI with Dynamic Content presentation
It enables packaging information in the form of interrelated concept objects for presentation to multiple user profiles. Profiling users based on who uses the web pages, in what manner and customizing presentation of contents in the web for better appeal and usage value to users can be based on information collected as part of the interactive browsing behavior or through intelligent interfaces using neural networks.
Creation of Ontology and Metadata for various Domains :
The XC-Map facilitates the creation of an ontology within a specific domain - as an explicit representation of important concepts and relations within such domain.
Construction of Knowledge Models –
The models constructed with XC-Map during collaboration are not only shared mental models of the problem, but also robust dynamic models that act as "holding environments" for a range of ideas that could otherwise be difficult to fully articulate and share.
Interpreting Information - Information when found, can be often misinterpreted in the absence of associated context, supporting data, framework, assumptions, etc. Information and contents to be interpreted with their true meaning will require the understanding of these associated facts and details ant their pattern. Such reliable interpretation would be possible within the solution framework offered by XC-MAP.
Integrating and Re-Organizing Information - Putting data together for new analysis requires the integration of multiple perspectives. Comparing perspectives and identifying their similarities and differences is a time-consuming task if accurate enabling mechanism such as concept objects, metadata schema etc are not as accessible as the source data itself. XC-Map overcomes this limitation.
Evolving concepts with rediscovery of facts and their analysis - Links between different domains of knowledge on the map help to illustrate how these domains are related to one another. The XC-Map facilitates revision of the maps, positioning of concepts in ways that lend to clarity.
Analysing concepts from multiple perspectives "learning style" differences in cognitive abilities are, to a large extent, user dependent and the mechanisms that aid knowledge management and their use for problem solving would need to factor such differences in the patterns of learning. With its XML based architecture and object oriented emphasis with enabling features for adaptive dynamic presentations, the XC-Map offers considerable opportunities for knowledge builders and problem solvers. The tool can be used in isolation or interfaced ingeneously with the overall digital repository design
6.Future Extensions
Dynamic character to knowledge repositories are made possible with the use of languages like asp, jsp, CGI, perl etc; tools and mechanisms such as XC-Map; neural network implementations for intelligent interfaces and implementation of standards such as SCORM for repurposing content. The present work will be extended for exploring enhancements for use metadata and implementations with neural network and use of SCORM standards.
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