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BASIC Lab: a software tool for supporting the production of knowledge in research organizations through the management of scientific concepts Astrid Jaime, Mickae¨l Gardoni, Joe¨l Mosca and Dominique Vinck

(Information about the authors can be found at the end of the article.)

Abstract Purpose – The important role of publicly funded basic research has been widely recognized. The knowledge produced is made available to society, who could use it for innovation and in this way contribute to economic growth. Thus, it is important to support scientific activities. Proposes to examine how researchers could profit from approaches such as knowledge management. Design/methodology/approach – Some research organizations were studied and their knowledge management practices analyzed. Special attention was paid to the realization of research projects. Findings – An approach is proposed based on the capitalization of all the artifacts managed during the bibliographical activities performed by researchers. Research limitations/implications – At the current state of advancement of the project, only a prototype of the software tool has been developed. Originality/value – As sociology studies have observed that a fundamental aspect of science is the modification and construction of new concepts, it is proposed to include the support of the management of scientific concepts as a way of assisting this knowledge production process. In conclusion this work gives the basis of the definition of a software tool that should help to accomplish this activity. Keywords Knowledge management, Capitalization, Research organizations, Bibliographic systems Paper type Research paper

Introduction Nowadays, publicly funded basic research is seen as a major source of information and knowledge (see Salter and Martin, 2001). In fact, according to Chalmers (1991), ‘‘the goal of science is to produce knowledge about the world’’. However, there are multiple definitions of knowledge. It is therefore important to define our understanding of this notion. After looking into several definitions, we can propose the following definition based on the work of Frank (2003) and Simoni (2001): Knowledge is a temporally stabilized comprehension resulting from interpretations of information, human experience and reflections based on a set of beliefs, which resides as fictive objects in people’s mind and is suitable for transformation into actions. Therefore, given that science produces knowledge, we could ask ourselves if it is possible to improve the process that allows this production of knowledge and if there are any methodologies that could facilitate this activity. As an answer to these questions, we propose the use of knowledge management. According to Wunram et al. (2002), this ‘‘is the systematic, goal oriented application of measures to steer and control the tangible and intangible knowledge assets of organizations, with the aim of using existing knowledge inside and outside of these organizations to enable the creation of new knowledge, and generate value, innovation and

DOI 10.1108/13673270510629963

VOL. 9 NO. 6 2005, pp. 53-66, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270

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‘‘ A basic problem is to know how to document and transmit the information relating to intermediate choices and results as a way of supporting the realization of subsequent research phases or projects.’

improvement out of it’’. Thus, we can see the coherence between this approach and scientific activity. Therefore, the question that arises is how to go about it, which means defining how to manage and capitalize the knowledge produced, and how to rationalize and instrument activity. Nevertheless, the introduction of knowledge management into the scientific environment is not currently backed by a well-defined methodology. Thus, the introduction of this practice in the scientific environment needs to be studied in detail. In order to do so, we relied on a phenomenon that we have observed in the scientific environment in recent years: the introduction of quality management in research organizations as a way of better structuring their activities. We have seen that it leads to a range of ideas about the way activities are performed. Apart from the usual revision of the procedures used for performing administrative activities, questions about the way documents, scientific data and research projects are managed start to appear. This might suggest that the introduction of knowledge management practices could be facilitated through the introduction of quality management, as it is the personnel themselves who start wondering about ways of improving the development of activities. This is reinforced by AFNOR (2001) that proposes the use of quality management to support the development of research activities by using an approach that consists of ‘‘co-producing quality, the knowledge and know-how associated, by the ensemble of the involved parts within the framework of a progressive and continuous learning process’’. Consequently, our approach has been to study the experience of some research organizations that have invested a part of their efforts in quality management. We have tried to observe the impact this methodology could have on the knowledge management practices used at these organizations. Our aim is to define ways to introduce knowledge management practices into research activities. The objective is to support the knowledge production process, by providing researchers tools that facilitate the development of daily activities and allow the capitalization of knowledge. In the first part of this article, we describe the research methodology and some characteristics of research organizations. In the second part, we will present the observed knowledge management practices of a few research units trying to implement a quality management system. In the third part, we present an approach for addressing the implementation of knowledge management at research projects. In the final part, we present the basis for the definition of a tool aimed at supporting this approach.

The context The research methodology We started our research process with a field study in order to understand the reality of research organizations when implementing a quality management system. This work was complemented by the definition of a proposal and has three main phases: 1. Fieldwork. The aim of this phase is to understand the reality of research organizations and the role quality management plays in the implementation of knowledge management. It corresponds to sociological work and was performed in several parts. We studied a research organization for four months, performed interviews at seven research organizations where formal efforts of introduction of quality management are being carried out and performed a follow-up study of the implementation process of the quality system at a research laboratory.

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2. Analysis of the information gathered. Here the aim was comprehension of the situation, which allows us to propose some elements to be taken into account when introducing knowledge management in research organizations. 3. Instrumentation of the proposal. This phase consists of the design of a tool to support the management of knowledge in research organizations. In the next section we present some aspects arising from the first phase. Some characteristics of research organizations: diversity and the project-driven mode of operation The fieldwork, together with the study of the literature on the functioning of these organizations, has allowed us to observe some important characteristics of research organizations. Among the main ones we find are the diversity of activity fields, the large quantity of records to be managed, the multiplicity of working methods, the large turnover of personnel and the multiplicity of activities that must be developed in parallel. Another important aspect is that, according to the results of research in the sociology of sciences and our own observations, research activities are usually developed in the form of more or less structured research projects. Vinck (1995) writes: The activities in the laboratory are structured in projects. The project is a sequential unit whose completion is the writing of a research report or of a publication. The project seems to be the unit of organization that allows the allocation of tasks to members of the laboratory, the ordering of supplies, the preparation of equipment, the proposal of phenomena to be studied and the orientation of library research . . . although the various tasks of a project can be carried out by different people, work is often carried out by only one person. The reason given by researchers is the need to access the history of the procedure by which the phenomenon is made visible.

These observations leads us to consider the practices regarding the management of projects in a way that allows research organizations to take advantage of the knowledge acquired and produced in an on-going project for the development of subsequent projects. From a sociological point of view, a very important aspect seems to be the need to know the contingent history[1] associated with the constitution of a phenomenon or with the establishment of a fact or a statement. Given this history and the high mobility of researchers, the issue of documentation, as a way of elucidating the process carried out, becomes a concern for the researchers themselves when they are involved in the reconsideration of a former stage or when they have to take charge of a project begun by a colleague. This aspect directs our attention towards acute problems of traceability. A basic problem is to know how to document and transmit the information relating to intermediate choices and results as a way of supporting the realization of subsequent research phases or projects. In this context, we studied the various approaches used by some research entities implementing a quality management system. We paid special attention to the management of information (data, documents, etc), since ‘‘knowledge is based on data and information’’ (Wunram et al., 2002). In the next section, we present some of the knowledge management practices we observed.

Knowledge management in research organizations If one takes the objectives of knowledge management, as defined by Steels (1993), as being ‘‘to promote knowledge growth, knowledge communication and knowledge preservation’’, one can see a coincidence with the role one could define for research organizations. For this reason, we will propose some key elements related to the subject of knowledge management. The current knowledge management practices resulting from the implementation of quality management The assertions in terms of capitalization. Grundstein (1995) says that there is a: . . . logic of capitalization that proceeds according to two lines of thinking:

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one line of thinking oriented towards the management of knowledge (management of technical data, document management, management of configurations);

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another line of thinking oriented towards the formalization of know-how (acquisition/representation of the fields of knowledge and of the reasoning relating to this knowledge).

We are going to analyze the way in which these lines of thinking are present in the research organizations we observed. We will look into the way in which the implementation of quality management has contributed to the ‘‘logic of capitalization’’. The observations in terms of capitalization. The quality management systems implemented in the research organizations studied up until the time of writing are oriented towards the first line of thinking (management of knowledge). They started with the objective of improving the organizational aspects, mainly through the writing of documents (operational procedures and documents). For the management of these documents, the quality management system has been translated into information systems, often an intranet that sometimes manages other documents of the organization. This verifies the situation described by Gandon et al. (2002b) about the use of intranets and the web as means to manage documentation[2]. However, the information systems that we have observed have only been used for the management of the documents directly related to the quality system. Unlike the aim of projects like CoMMA (Gandon et al., 2002a), they do not seek ‘‘the management and the circulation of distributed knowledge’’. At least this is not the case for knowledge that surpasses the limits of the one explicitly present in the quality management system. For the laboratories studied, the documents resulting from the research process are, in most cases, not managed by these systems. Not even documents presenting final results are always included in these systems. The actual systems aim at facilitating the completion of activities by providing a tool that makes it possible to find documents or information and to organize those produced. The principle of re-utilization is implicitly present, but not explicitly expressed. In other words, the systems are developed in order to organize more than to re-use. Concerning the second line of thinking (the formalization of know-how), it could be said that, usually, implementing quality management means formalizing at least a part of the know-how used by the employees of an organization. In the research organizations which we studied and where we performed interviews, this has been done for the administrative activities, such as purchasing or contracting. In contrast, this line of thinking has not been yet addressed to research activities, which continue to function mainly with little formalization of the related know-how. Within this framework, we believe that there is an important place for the utilization of knowledge capitalization methodologies. However, the observed cases of implementation of quality management do not take them into account in an explicit way. The corporate memory of research organizations The concept of corporate or organizational memory is useful for understanding certain aspects of research activity. The reason can be expressed by quoting Stein (1995) who says that: Organizational Memory is the means by which knowledge from the past is brought to bear on present activities, thus resulting in higher or lower levels of organizational effectiveness[3].

It is then pertinent to analyze this concept in the context of research. In this framework, we find the definition of organizational memory proposed by Van Heijst et al. (1997), to be suitable given the elucidation tradition existing in research. He defines it as: . . .an explicit, disembodied, persistent representation of the knowledge and information in an organization.

For starters, we have seen that the implementation of quality management is used mainly for support activities. In other words, there is an effort of formalization and capitalization of the

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organizational memory for support activities, which is not accompanied by a similar effort for scientific activities. In this context, know-how corresponds to the knowledge of the way of carrying out research projects and the activities that support them. This know-how forms part of the tacit competences (see Vinck, 1995) of researchers and is consequently not formalized. Additionally, scientific knowledge is the main raw material of the activity, mobilized by the creativity of the researcher. Therefore, the principles that try to organize the research activity, or part of it, can be perceived of as being non-applicable because they could be seen as constraining and/or opposite to imaginative creation. However, we believe that it is possible to implement practices which allow generated knowledge to be located, preserved, shared and brought up to date (Grundstein, 2002) for the benefit of the research activity. According to AFNOR (2000), a process is a ‘‘set of interrelated or interacting activities which transforms inputs into outputs’’. When talking about the research process, one could say that it uses as main raw material (as input) the knowledge accessible to the researchers, internally and externally, in order to produce new knowledge (the output of the process). Thus, the research process could be represented as shown in Figure 1. For that reason, we find that the typology of corporate memory suggested by Dieng et al. (1999) is pertinent in this context. This typology distinguishes between the internal memory (‘‘corresponding to knowledge and information internal to the company’’) and the external memory (‘‘corresponding to knowledge and information useful for the company but coming from the external world’’). According to these authors, the role of corporate memory is to provide ‘‘the right knowledge or information to the right person at the right time and at the right level’’ (Dieng et al., 1999). Consequently, accomplishment of the research process could be related in a very important way to the researchers’ access to both of these memories and to their capacity to mobilize them. It would then be desirable to incorporate measures to facilitate the researchers’ access to the internal and external memory. The position expressed by Groleau (2002) could be used to support this idea. She says that: . . .the possibility of increasing the effectiveness of work within organizations greatly depends on the configuration of information sources offered to workers in that environment, the vision they offer and the competence of workers to act upon it.

Additionally, as the activity is basically organized in projects, project memory (‘‘comprising the project definition, activities, history and results.’’ (Dieng et al., 1999)) could be seen as the main constituent of the internal memory, and therefore should be also considered. As we have shown, we are confronted with a situation where quality management starts to introduce some elements (formalization, document management and ideas originating from the implementation process) that could support the introduction of knowledge management in activities where both internal and external memories are important for the accomplishment of the activity. For that reason, it is necessary to establish a way of complementing the practices already in place and improving the management of knowledge. This is the subject we will develop in the next section. Figure 1 The research process

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An approach for addressing the implementation of knowledge management in research organizations We are interested in finding ways to profit from the knowledge produced throughout the completion of research projects. However, Wunram et al. (2002) indicates that ‘‘the approaches that start with the goal of capturing all the knowledge of the employees are predetermined to fail’’. It is thus necessary to define the knowledge that is more beneficial to research activities. Which knowledge to capitalize? In order to look for ways of introducing knowledge management in research activities, we analyzed in detail the information used and generated during the completion of this kind of project, studying the support it offers to the capitalization of knowledge. This allowed us to note that most of the elucidated knowledge, resulting from research projects, is already capitalized thanks to the existing valorization mechanisms existing in scientific research. However, a great amount of the knowledge produced during the research process remains barely capitalized. Therefore, the question is how to capitalize this knowledge. In this context, the concept of artifact seems useful to us. Groleau (2002) presents the definition given by Hutchins who says that ‘‘artifacts are repositories of knowledge constructed in durable material form’’. Consequently, we could say that during the completion of research projects there are a great number of artifacts produced. Here, it is important to state that for us, an artifact is an element having a material form (or a virtual form, as it can also exist only on a computer system) which can convey a part of the knowledge held by its author, provided that its receiver knows the context in which it was conceived and has the necessary knowledge for its interpretation. In this sense, artifacts are ways of translating a part of their authors’ knowledge in order to give a representation that can be stored and potentially, shared and re-used. For this reason, we decided to focus on the capitalization of artifacts, as a way to introduce knowledge management practices into research. What are the artifacts produced? In order to clearly define the artifacts produced during the completion of research projects, we modeled them using the structured analysis design technique (SADT) principles for inspiration (see Figure 2). It is important to note that this model is purposely general and not centered on a specific research domain. Its function is to help us define the artifacts produced when developing research projects, more than the exact activities carried out. Thanks to the model, we were able to identify 102 artifacts (represented in the model as the links between activities) that we, for comprehension purposes, classified into three categories: 1. Artifacts related to the bibliography: such as, publications, research reports, books, researchers’ notes to documents, concepts found in documents, etc. 2. Artifacts related to the management of the project: such as, project plan, meeting reports, etc. 3. Artifacts related to the intermediate results: such as, software and hardware developed for a project, data gathered and treated, etc.

‘‘ The systems are developed in order to organize more than to re-use. ’’

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Figure 2 Representation of research projects

This leaves us with the problem of finding ways to capitalize each one of these three kinds of artifacts. How to capitalize artifacts? In order to answer this question, we envisioned two possibilities: 1. methodological tools; and 2. software tools. Concerning the first possibility, we analyzed the existing methods for building project memories. We have identified many interesting works (see Bekhti and Matta, 2003), but none adapted to the characteristics of research projects, especially because of the dynamic environment and the non repetitiveness of the projects. Regarding software tools, we have tried to identify the most important knowledge management software tools currently available on the market in order to analyze their functionalities and their capacity to facilitate the capitalization of the artifacts or intermediate

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results issued from research projects. After analyzing the functionalities offered by 224 tools available through 53 companies, we concluded that the data-processing developments offer many possibilities for knowledge management in research organizations. Nevertheless, we are inclined to think that it still lacks a tool adapted to the basic research activity, dealing with the capitalization of artifacts. If we compare the tools available for the artifacts we have identified, we see that the situation could be schematically presented as follows: B

There are a number of interesting tools offering functionalities for project management.

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There are a few tools offering functionalities for data management, which could support the management of the artifacts related to the intermediate results, concretely those related to the data gathered and treated.

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Some tools manage particular aspects of the management of documents, such as classification and storing.

Apart from the tools available on the market, some researchers have already worked on the development of the development of tools dealing with the management of knowledge produced by research activity (see Buckingham Shum et al., 1999; Gardoni et al., 2004; Lo´pez-Ortega et al., 2004; Oliveira et al., 2003; Sarini et al., 2004; Vorakulpipat, 2004). However, most of them are still at a developmental stage. Additionally, we have noted that they do not take into account the capitalization of the knowledge acquired while doing bibliographical research, which is a stage present in all research projects, no matter what domain the project belongs to. There is then a lack of tools offering support to researchers when developing the process of bibliographical research. For this reason, we have decided to concentrate on the management and the capitalization of the bibliographical work done within research projects and to define a software tool for performing this process, given the advantages information technology offers for this kind of task.

Proposal of a tool for capitalizing knowledge through bibliographical research: BASIC Lab It is important to clarify, that by bibliographical work we mean all the interactions that a researcher, a project team and even a laboratory as a whole, has with bibliographical sources. Specifically, that is all interactions from the moment a researcher starts looking for the available knowledge which could probably be useful for treating a scientific question, to the moment he/she produces new documents (notably publications), containing his/her findings (or the findings of a project team). This includes the research, annotation and analysis of documents, as well as the selection and manipulation of useful concepts until the production of new concepts, usually incorporated in new documents. The idea is to support the researcher in the completion of this work, and by doing so, to capitalize, at least, part of the knowledge acquired and produced. Functional analysis In order to define the specifications of the tool, which we have called BASIC Lab – Bibliographic Artifacts for ScIentific knowledge Creation in Research LABoratories – we performed a functional analysis based on the sociological work and on our model of research projects. This helped us to identify as main functions:

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The location and analysis of interesting information in the external information sources. The system has to facilitate the activities of information research and of analysis of the information found.

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The selection and analysis of interesting information available in the internal information sources.

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The provision of relevant information to a project in progress.

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The enrichment of the information available in the internal information sources.

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The sharing of the bibliographical information collected and produced.

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The support of the writing of publications.

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‘‘ The concept of corporate or organizational memory is useful for understanding certain aspects of research activity. ’’

We relied on the work we had previously done for identifying the knowledge management software tools (section ‘‘How to capitalize artifacts?’’) and we complemented it with a new identification work, focused on the bibliographic management tools available in order to identify the technical options available to respond to these functions. We found tools specially conceived to manage certain aspects related to the management of the bibliography, mainly for the management and for the visualization of references. Therefore, the conclusion was that the tools already available on the market support some specific tasks needed when managing bibliographical sources (such as references management and visualization), but there is not a tool providing a support to the process as a whole. Moreover, there is a very important function for which we have not been able to identify any tool. We refer to the management of the scientific concepts that appear in the bibliographical sources. Specifically, we were unable to identify solutions concerned with the location and extraction of definitions and descriptions of the scientific concepts contained in documents resulting from research processes. Here it is important to note that by scientific concepts we mean the constructions based on previous scientific knowledge and supporting data, that undergo an evaluation procedure to verify their ability to explore, explain, describe, predict or influence a phenomenon. This aspect can be very useful for research activity in general and for practical aspects like the writing of scientific documents. In fact, according to Dunbar (2004): . . .many researchers have noted that an important component of science is the generation of new concepts and modification of existing concepts. Starting with Bruner, Goodnow, and Austing (1956) many researchers focused on the idea that scientists must formulate new concepts and theories.

That is why we intend to support the researcher when managing (which means using and developing) concepts, by supporting the bibliographical work linked to this process. The scenario-based analysis In order to define in detail the specifications of the tool, we analyzed the probable scenarios of use. We started by looking at the activities already done by researchers when doing bibliographical research, without any special tool for supporting their activity. For the time being, we have identified eight scenarios: 1. researcher searching for documents; 2. researcher reading documents; 3. researcher writing documents; 4. researcher searching for concepts; 5. researcher developing concepts; 6. researcher searching for projects; 7. researcher participating at projects; and 8. researcher searching for other researchers. For each of these scenarios we have identified the possible situations a researcher can encounter. These scenarios can be represented as shown in Figure 3. This figure shows the different ways in which a researcher could interact with the tool when doing bibliographical research. We have also represented the interactions between the different elements that appear in this activity: researchers, projects, documents, concepts

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Figure 3 Scenarios of utilization of a tool for supporting bibliographic research

and annotations, which are introduced as a way of capturing a part of the knowledge of the researcher who reads a document. The UML model The analyses shown in the previous two sections, have allowed us to model the tool in UML and to define the main functionalities that the tool should have to support the researchers’ activities (see Figure 4). This model allows us to establish the basis for the specifications of a software tool aimed at supporting researchers in their work with bibliographical sources. These are seen as artifacts representing a part of the knowledge produced as a result of previous scientific work. Their function is to partially transfer concepts that other researchers will be able to use to produce new concepts. The idea is to support this process in order to allow researchers to concentrate more on intellectual activities and less on routine activities.

Conclusions Our research started with the objective of defining ways of improving the knowledge production process in research organizations. We studied the experiences of some research organizations engaged in quality management, as we observed that this process leads to a range of ideas about the way documents, data and projects are managed, which could be favorable for the introduction of knowledge management practices. In order to look for ways of establishing the concrete methods of implementing this kind of practices, we analyzed the activities performed during the research process and the information used and generated by these activities. This enabled us to observe that a very important aspect is the management of the knowledge produced and acquired during the realization of projects. A part of this knowledge is materialized in the form of artifacts. Subsequently, the schematization of the way in which research projects are undertaken allowed us to identify three kinds of artifacts: 1. those related to the bibliography; 2. those related to the management of projects; and

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Figure 4 Class diagram for a support system for the completion of bibliographical work related to the manipulation of scientific concepts

3. those related to intermediate results. In order to find ways to capitalize these three kinds of artifacts, we studied two main approaches: 1. methodological tools; and 2. software tools. Regarding methodological tools, we did not find any tool we considered adapted to the bibliographical research activity. Regarding software tools, we assessed the current depth of supply and the lack of tools that could facilitate the capitalization of knowledge acquired from bibliographical research. Given this situation and the transversal character that this work has relating to different research domains, we decided to work towards the definition of a tool focused on the capitalization of the artifacts produced when carrying out bibliographical research. Subsequently, an examination of the technical options available led us to note that there is no tool which includes the management of scientific concepts. The latter are the basic elements handled by researchers when dealing with bibliography in the context of research projects. For that reason, we decided to concentrate on the definition of a tool that could provide support to researchers during the completion of bibliographical work by allowing the

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manipulation of scientific concepts. To do so, we did a functional analysis and a scenario-based analysis that helped us to model this system with UML. These activities have allowed us to establish the basis for the specification of a software tool, which we called BASIC Lab. We have already developed a prototype of the tool and intend to experiment it during the coming months.

Notes 1. The expression ‘‘contingent history" is used here in the sense that the realization of research projects entails contingencies, and as a consequence may present an important variability from one project to the next. 2. Gandon et al. (2002a) write: ‘‘Organizations take advantage of internet technologies to simplify the diffusion of knowledge, leading to the setup of intranets. Web technologies are used to setup corporate webs to distribute information in a uniform way independently of the information storage (Corby and Dieng, 1997)’’. 3. He adds that memories are ‘‘a particular type of information’’ and that ‘‘a memory is a persistent record not dependent on a tight coupling between sender and receiver’’.

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Grundstein, M. (2002), ‘‘Le management des connaissances dans l’entreprise. Proble´matique, axe de progre`s, orientations’’, Research Report #050207, available at: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/michel. grundstein/References/Rr050207.pdf (accessed July 16, 2004). Lo´pez-Ortega, E., Alcańtara, T. and Bricenõ, S. (2004), ‘‘Technology intelligence system implementation: The Mexican Institute of Engineering Experience’’, Proceedings of the IAMOT 2004 – International Association for Management of Technology – Conference, Washington, DC. Oliveira, J., Moreira de Souza, J., Strauch, J.C.M. and Marques, C. (2003), ‘‘Epistheme: a scientific knowledge management environment in the SpeCs collaborative framework’’, Computers in Industry, Vol. 52 No. 1, pp. 81-93. Salter, A.J. and Martin, B.R. (2001), ‘‘The economic benefits of publicly funded basic research: a critical review’’, Research Policy, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 509-32. Sarini, M., Blanzieri, E., Giorgino, P. and Moser, C. (2004), ‘‘From actions to suggestions: supporting the work of biologists through laboratory notebooks’’, Cooperative Systems Design: Scenario-Based Design of Collaborative Systems, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems – COOP’04. French Riviera, France. Simoni, G. (2001), ‘‘Capitaliser les connaissances geńe´reés dans les projets R&D’’, Se´minaire de the`se du 19 novembre 2001, available at: www.univ-aix.fr/lest/lesdocuments/lesnotesdetravail/2001/simoni/ capitaliser.pdf (accessed June 23, 2004). Steels, L. (1993), ‘‘Corporate knowledge management’’, Proceedings of ISMICK’93 Conference, Compie`gne, France, pp. 9-30. Stein, E.W. (1995), ‘‘Organizational memory: review of concepts and recommendations for management’’, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 17-32. Van Heijst, G., Van Der Spek, R. and Kruizinga, E. (1997), ‘‘Corporate memories as a tool for knowledge management’’, Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 41-54. Vinck, D. (1995), Sociologie des Sciences, Armand Colin Editeur, Paris. Vorakulpipat, C. (2004), ‘‘The design of knowledge sharing system in research organization’’, Proceedings of the IAMOT 2004 – International Association for Management of Technology – Conference, Washington, DC. Wunram, M., Weber, F., Pawar, K.S. and Gupta, A. (2002), ‘‘Proposition of a human-centred solution framework for KM in the concurrent enterprise’’, in Pawar, K., Weber, F. and Thoben, K.-D. (Eds), Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising – Ubiquitous Engineering in the Collaborative Economy, Rome, Italy, pp. 151-8.

Further reading AFNOR (2000), NF EN ISO 9001-2000 Syste`me de management de la qualite´ – Exigences, AFNOR, Paris. Anell, B. (1998), ‘‘Patterns of success and failure in renewal projects. A study of eight projects for developing a learning organisation’’, in Lundin, R. and Midler, C. (Eds), Projects as Arenas for Renewal and Learning Processes, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, pp. 99-108. Ayas, K. (1998), ‘‘Learning through projects: meeting the implementation challenge’’, in Lundin, R. and Midler, C. (Eds), Projects as Arenas for Renewal and Learning Processes, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, pp. 89-98. Department of Energy (DOE) (1992), Standard DOE-ER-STD-6001-92, Implementation Guide for Quality Assurance Programs for Basic and Applied Research, Department of Energy, AREA – QCIC, Washington, DC, available at: http://tis.eh.doe.gov/techstds/standard/est6001/est6001.pdf (accessed August 5, 2004). Dunbar, K. (1997), ‘‘How scientists think: online creativity and conceptual change in science’’, in Ward, T.B., Smith, S.M. and Vaid, S. (Eds), Conceptual Structures and Processes: Emergence, Discovery and Change, APA Press, Washington DC. Frank, C. and Gardoni, M. (2003), ‘‘A knowledge management system for industrial research activities: case study for IT research activities at the EADS Corporate Research Center’’, Proceedings of the IJCAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Mexico.

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Jaime, A., Gardoni, M. and Vinck, D. (2003a), ‘‘Capitalizing knowledge at research organizations through quality management‘‘, Proceedings of the 3rd European Knowledge Management Summer School: Knowledge Management in Action, San Sebastian, Spain. Jaime, A., Gardoni, M. and Vinck, D. (2003b), ‘‘Capitalisation des connaissances dans les organismes de recherche. Analyse dans le contexte de la de´marche qualite´‘‘, Proceedings of the CITE’2003 Conference – Coope´ration, Innovation et Technologies, Troyes, France. Jaime, A., Gardoni, M. and Vinck, D. (2004a), ‘‘La de´marche qualite´, cadre de la capitalisation des connaissances dans les organismes de recherche‘‘. Proceedings of the Industrial Organisations and Production Institute - IPI 2004 Conference. Autrans, France. Jaime, A., Gardoni, M., Mosca, J. and Vinck, D. (2004b), ‘‘Quality management, framework of knowledge capitalization at research organizations’’, Proceedings of the IAMOT 2004 – International Association for Management of Technology – Conference, Washington, DC. Tijssen, J.W. (2004), ‘‘Is the commercialisation of scientific research affecting the production of public knowledge? Global trends in the output of corporate research articles’’, Research Policy, Vol. 33 No. 5, pp. 679-90.

About the authors Astrid Jaime is a PhD student at the Gilco Laboratory, which belongs to the Industrial Engineering School of the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (INPG), 46 Ave. Fe´lix Viallet, 38000 Grenoble, France ([email protected]). Mickae¨l Gardoni is an Assistant Professor at the Industrial Engineering School of the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (INPG). He undertakes his research at the Industrial Management Logistics and Design (Gestion Industrielle Logistique et Conception - GILCO) laboratory. His research interests include CSCW, Information Management, Knowledge Management, data exchange and concurrent engineering. 46 Ave. Fe´lix Viallet, 38000 Grenoble, France ([email protected]). Joe¨l Mosca is an associated professor of quality management and project management at the Industrial Engineering School of the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble (INPG). He also works as a consultant of quality management and project management for industrial and research organizations. 46 Ave. Fe´lix Viallet, 38000 Grenoble, France ([email protected]). Dominique Vinck is a professor of sociology of science, technology and innovation at the University Pierre Mende`s-France (Social Sciences) and at the National Polytechnic Institute (INPG) of Grenoble. He is Director of the Research Center on Sociotechnical Innovation and Industrial Organisation belonging to the French CNRS and to the Universite´ Pierre Mende`s-France, BP 47 - 38040 Grenoble Cedex 9, France (Dominique.Vinck @upmf-grenoble.fr).

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