On-line Knowledge Management Search Engine Lei Zhang
[email protected] Bhavani Sridharan
[email protected] Kinshuk
[email protected] Department of Information System Massey University Palmerston North New Zealand Abstract Knowledge management (KM), as one of the means to obtain better knowledge acquisition, is not new to educational organization. The existing KM applications play a role in student learning, however they are not consistently targeting the mission of efficient and effective learning needs. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated view of “smooth and pleasant” combination of the KM and Search Engine in terms of on line usability both in technical and functional aspects.
1. Introduction The ‘knowledge economy’ in recent years has popularized the concept of knowledge management. With the development of world industry, KM is also being recognized as a power engine through which educational institution can address its need for innovation and creativity, and improve learning and teaching performance. Further search engine provides simplicity, flexibility and accessibility on searchable queries. Applying search engine techniques with KM concepts is to serve learners with an effective and efficient teaching and learning environment. On-line KM Search Engine empower long distance learning, innovate self-learning motivation, enhance learning flexibility and adaptation, promote knowledge creation, share, capture and shorten the knowledge acquisition time. It enables the potentiality to achieve a level of interoperability and maximize the performance of the designated purpose of better learning.
2. Related Research KM, search engine, online based application is not new to us in the aspect of information / knowledge delivering, transferring, generating and summarizing. They can also share some functionality and features among each other. Hence, it is quite possible to
locate KM with Search engines as an online based application.
2.1
Knowledge Management
As an organization, knowledge is the lifeblood of the decision-making within an organization [1]. Sound and proper knowledge at the right time is essential in strategic planning, decision-making, problems solving, administrative management and operational excellence. In terms of educational learning, KM is more than that. It is a successful means to deliver the knowledge to learners, improve knowledge sharing among users, and provide a new environment in which new knowledge is to be created. KM is not new to educational organizations, but it lacks one of the important functionality to provide access to right knowledge at the right time [2]. This calls for new knowledge management techniques and information technologies to capture and transfer tacit knowledge [3] which is deeply inside human’s brain, it would be a distinctive improvement from the traditional learning.
2.2
Search Engine
Statistics shows that search engines are the most popular method used by web surfers to retrieve information. 46% of people discover new websites via search engines [4]. And Google has a welldeserved reputation as the top choice. As crawlerbased service, it provides comprehensive coverage of the web along with great relevancy [5]. However, there is tons of information when you do the search, these can easily puzzle you which one is the exact information you want. If we can find a way to organize the information in a processed and manageable manner, i.e. explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge and further information links, it would be much more convenient for the learners to get concrete knowledge and to solve their learning problems.
Proceedings of the The 3rd IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT’03) 0-7695-1967-9/03 $17.00 © 2003 IEEE
Fortunately, these concerns are captured and more efficient tool is to be designed as the solution to fulfill the purpose of efficient, effective and economic learning.
3. On-line KM Search Engine
5. Application Assessment
On-line KM Search Engine is a new type of search engine. It is undertaking Knowledge Management practice by searching the data from the local processed database and the information links from Google web sites. By using this application, learners will get both the explicit knowledge & tacit knowledge and further information links. Further, it provides the functionality to access other popular search engines, i.e. directly get the search results from other favorite sites. In this way, users will obtain more accurate knowledge in a timely manner. It is constructed based on the following framework: the input problem queries fetch the result through independent local database and on-line Google database, then system returns the corresponding query result. Local database stores the processed knowledge provided by previous experts or any other learners. The output knowledge from the local database is formatted into two categories, one is explicit knowledge such as definition, key words and examples, and the other is tacit knowledge, such as common mistakes, solutions etc. Further most relevant knowledge links will be retrieved from Google database which also as the third category listed after the first two categories. In this way, it can maximize the users’ satisfaction. Figure 1 is the conceptual framework of On-line KM Search Engine. Query Input Knowledge Requests
Local Database Source Selection & Query modification Google Result
Pereferences
smoothly transfer to other sites for further exploration. Further within this website, there is independent input web page in which anyone can submit sound problem solutions. It is energetic “petrol” of this knowledge repository.
The assessment procedure is taken by means of questionnaires in order to make further progress on the application development. It focuses on seven aspects surrounding KM and Search Engine. According to the statistics, the corresponding charts are established which show the pros and cons on this prototype. The positive comments and further suggestions from all kinds of participants motivate the effort to improve the functionality and practical usability of this application.
6. Future Work Based on the valuable questionnaire results and further learning objective investigation, following improvements should be considered. The majority of educational organizations need to begin taking their knowledge assets seriously in the future. It is rather sure that students will have more and more different requests on the learning support. The required knowledge assets will differ from students to students depending on their specific needs. KM should be more adaptive to satisfy those on-going learning requirements. The corresponding KM system should be enhanced by encapsulating knowledge mapping, providing more accurate knowledge / solutions to cater for the differing student requirements, while reducing students’ search time.
Output Knowledge Results Category 1: Explicit Knowledge
Ordering Policy
Category 2: Tacit Knowledge
Page Retriever & Page Analyzer
Category 3: Knowledge Links
Figure 1: Application framework
4. Application Prototype Based on the concept of On-line KM Search Engine, a prototype has been built, namely “Power Knowledge Search Engine”. As to the implementation techniques, PHP and MySQL are finally chosen as the suitable tools. The interface design of the prototype follows user-friendly rules -- easy to understand and simple to use. Since all the data, information and processed knowledge are located on the server, it ensures the accessibility and flexibility of this website which can be traced at anywhere in the world as long as you have Internet access. In order to make the better use of the website, a mechanism has been set up for smooth navigation within the website and can
Reference [1] Hussain, H. (1998). Organizational Knowledge Management Models & Tech Knowledge Management & Decision-Making. STD # 983153500. www.cs.toronto.edu/~mkolp/lis2103/AHussain.ppt [2] Sridharan B. & Kinshuk. Application of Knowledge Management in Reusable Web-based Learning Systems. ICCE2002, December 3-6, 2002, Auckland, New Zealand. [3] Fleming, N.D. (1996). Coping with a Revolution: Will the Internet change learning? Lincoln University. Occasional paper for faculty [4] Rating of popular Information Media. First Rate official website. www.firstrate.co.nz [5] Recommended Internet Source: Search Engines. www.tau.ac.il/medlib/search.html
Proceedings of the The 3rd IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT’03) 0-7695-1967-9/03 $17.00 © 2003 IEEE
