Even if a handover process is a critical stage in the software lifecycle, little is known about the problems encountered when transferring a software system from development to maintenance. In this paper, we have elicited five core handover problems as faced by five IT organizations today. These are (1) insufficient system knowledge, (2) lack of domain knowledge, (3) insufficient communication, (4) inadequate documentation, and (5) difficulties in tracking changes. / QC 20120223

Health and care services need to be optimised to meet the future demand that will be placed on them. This will require a closer coupling of service and research, whereby innovations in services can be rapidly tested and evaluated, and feed back into a continual process of service optimisation. The timely delivery of information from services into research is critical to this cycle. However, there are serious problems with the evidence on which healthcare and public health practice is based: it is expensive to produce; it takes a long time to produce; it takes a long time to influence professional practice; it is crude, relating to the average participant and simple treatment definitions under ideal conditions. In other words, it gives a low-resolution picture of how a patient might respond to treatment or a how a sub-group of the community might respond to a public health intervention. This work is an exploration of informatics solutions to these problems with an aim to re-engineer health care systems to make best use of the evidence available.

This thesis analyses the process of knowledge-base adoption in the enterprise environment. Using data from two knowledge-management systems operated by the company, Semanta, s.r.o. we studied the day-to-day interactions of employees using the system and identified the important drivers of system adoption. We began by studying the effect of co-workers' collaborative activities on knowledge creation within the system. It was found that they had a positive and significant impact upon overall knowledge creation and thus on adoption. Secondly, we explored how the newly defined concept of gamification could help determine and encourage an increase in knowledge creation. The use of gamification tools, such as the "Hall of Fame" page, turned out to have significant influence in the adoption process. Thirdly, we examined how users continually seek knowledge within the system and how asking for missing information and being supplied with answers has an impact on adoption rates. It was shown that the quicker the responses and the more experts dealing with requests the greater the impact on knowledge base adoption. Finally, we showed that the size and character of the company deploying the knowledge management system does not influence the adoption drivers. This thesis represents an effort to fill the...

This project presents an investigation into the viability of alternative knowl- edge acquisition strategies in knowledge management systems. The goal of this project is to illustrate that alternative means of knowledge acquisition can have a significant effect on the quality of the knowledge base. To accomplish this a modification of a wiki system, dubbed Prometheus, is proposed that uses a threshold based user vote acquisition mechanism. A simulation approach is used to compare a model of the Prometheus system against a model of a standard wiki system. A simulation framework is described that facilitates comparison between models of knowledge systems. The simu- lation framework is used to compare the knowledge systems in three different scenarios in an attempt to determine the conditions in which the Prometheus system may produce a higher quality knowledge base. The results of these ex- periments are presented along with some discussion and areas for future work.

It is commonly accepted nowadays that innovations are brought forward in an interactive process of knowledge generation and application. The business sector, the science sector, and policy actors are involved in this process as has been stressed in concepts such as innovation systems and the network approach. It is still unclear, however, as to what extent different kinds of innovation rely on specific knowledge sources and links. More advanced innovations on the one hand might draw more on scientific knowledge, generated in universities and research organizations. Such knowledge is often exchanged in personal interactions at a local or regional level. Incremental innovations and the adoption of new technologies, on the other hand, seem to occur often in interaction with partners from the business sector also at higher spatial levels. In this paper we analyze such patterns of knowledge links. After dealing with knowledge interactions from a conceptual view and reviewing the relevant literature, we present an empirical analysis for Austria. The findings show that firms introducing more advanced innovations are relying to a higher extent on R&D and patents, and that they are cooperating more often with universities and research organizations. Firms having introduced less advanced innovations rely more on knowledge links with business services. Furthermore, the employment of researchers was identified as a key factor enhancing knowledge interactions of firms with universities. (authors' abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

The main point of the work is an identification with NPS32 expert system, the describtion of the ways of getting knowledges. By choosing a suitable district for the expert system aplication, the suggestion of the knowledge base for the district will have been the result of the work.

The thesis deals with the issue of the knowledge management and its principles. The introduction of thesis is addressed to theoretical basics of the knowledge management that is followed by the practical part. The theoretical part provides the starting point for the proposal and applications of system for the chosen company. The main aim of the practical part was to form the application for management of projects and the repository of the knowledge of the chosen company. This aim should be followed by increasing of the work efficiency and enhancing of the access to the information. The resulting application will be set up into the company workings.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2004. / "Submitted as fulfilling the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree"-- t.p. "March 2004" Includes bibliographic references.

This thesis focuses on pre-conditions for organisations to implement knowledge management systems (KMS). Prior research suggests knowledge management (KM) is a capability and, as such, organisations need to know if they are ready to embark on KM initiatives that develop this capability. The findings of my research contend that measuring readiness is a prerequisite for implementing KMS holistically. I argue that effective KMS integrates the creation, mobilisation and diffusion stages of the knowledge life-cycle. Therefore, a system for gauging organisational readiness for KMS necessitates understanding the organisation’s inclination to create, mobilise and diffuse knowledge. Drawing from Socio-Technical Systems (STS) Theory, this study uses three dimensions, Infrastructure, Knowledge Structure and Knowledge Culture, to gauge each stage of the knowledge life-cycle. This study develops an instrument – the Knowledge Implementation Assessment Tool (KIAT) – to assess an organisation’s readiness for KMS. An organisation’s readiness can be said to increase as the measure on each dimension increases. In addition, this study found that structurally diverse Communities For Performance are needed to leverage Communities Of Practice in delivering direct business results, and that the implementation of KMS must be governed within and by cross-functional business processes. The knowledge-based theory of the firm and the knowledge life-cycle theory provide a conceptual understanding that managing the creation, mobilisation and diffusion of knowledge can yield competitive advantage. Based on these theories, an in-depth case study was conducted in Schlumberger’s technical service delivery process. The study analysed the implementation and the use of InTouch, Schlumberger’s KMS. The case study was conducted using an Abductive research strategy. The Means-End Chain approach and its laddering technique were used to collect and analyse data to establish 35 attributes vital for the implementation of an effective KMS – one that brings beneficial results. These attributes form the basis for creating the readiness assessment instrument – KIAT. A KMS implementation affects the social and technical aspects of an organisation. This study categorised the attributes along the three STS dimensions. The basis of the categorisation was the fit between each attribute and an STS dimension. The result is an assessment instrument to measure organisational readiness. The instrument, KIAT, consists of 50 factors to measure organisational readiness along the three STS dimensions for the creation, mobilisation and diffusion of knowledge. KIAT is operationalised in three organisational cases in different industries and processes. This allowed the instrument to be refined and led to the development of procedures to apply KIAT. The cases suggest that KIAT provides useful insights to discover or confirm KMS readiness where a cross-functional business process is the unit of analysis. The research contributes to research methodology in the KM field, as it is the first to use the Means-End Chain approach into knowledge management research by representing a hierarchy of organisational goals in a knowledge management initiative. For practitioners, my research makes two contributions. One, the KIAT readiness assessment instrument to diagnose their organisational readiness and take informed decisions. Two, the understanding of Communities For Performance. This study points the way for further research. This includes directions to explore the relationship between the levels of readiness and the effectiveness of KMS implementation, the relationship between organisations’ experience and their readiness, and the relationship between the dynamics of the KIAT Factors and organisational learning.