Knowledge Management 2e by Becerra-Fernandez, Sabherwal

Knowledge Management 2e by Becerra-Fernandez, Sabherwal is the 2nd edition of the Knowledge Management: Systems and Processes textbook authored by Irma Becerra-Fernandez and Rajiv Sabherwal and published by Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business in 2015.

• Access Control. Refers to mechanisms and policies that restrict access to computer resources.
• Active Web Documents. Web documents received by a client from the WWW server, which contain programs that execute on the client's computer, continually changing the display.
• Adaptation. The process of modifying a historical solution to solve the current problem when the current problem is not identical to the historical problem associated with that solution.
• Algorithm. A step-by-step problem-solving procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps.
• Application Linking. Refers to when the enterprise shares business processes and data between two or more IT applications.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI). The branch of computer science concerned with making computers behave like humans. John McCarthy coined the term in 1956 while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It refers to the science that provides computers with the ability to solve problems not easily solved through algorithmic models.
• Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). A type of artificial intelligence that attempts to simulate human intelligence by recreating the connective physiology of the human brain. It is a mechanism (either implemented in computer hardware or simulated using computer software) that can learn to map information between two vector spaces: input and output. Neural nets can be used to solve a large variety of problems, provided that it is possible to formulate the problem in terms of vector space-mapping.
• Associational Expertise. Knowledge or heuristic ability acquired mostly through human experience and elicited through the knowledge engineering process.
• Authorizer's Assistant. Assists the credit authorization staff to determine the credit level for credit card customers. The system takes information from a number of databases and approves or disapproves a telephone request from a merchant to authorize a large purchase from a cardholder.
• Auxiliary Memory. The transfer of pages of data between a computer's main memory and a secondary medium of memory.
• Avatar. Image of person in virtual reality; a movable three-dimensional image that can be used to represent somebody in cyberspace, for example, an Internet user.
• Back-propagation Algorithm. An algorithm for efficiently calculating the error gradient of a neural network, which can then be used as the basis of learning.
• Backward Reasoning. Reasoning from conclusions, or goals, to the inputs.
• Benchmarking. A test used to measure performance.
• Best Practices. An assessment recommending the most appropriate way of handling a certain type of task based on an observation of the way that several organizations handle that task.
• Bi-directional Reasoning. Uses forward reasoning to propagate belief from the inputs and generate conclusions and backward reasoning to confirm the conclusions generated dynamically.
• Blocks World. Early AI system. It used a robot arm to set blocks on a table. Demonstrated the feasibility of automated task planning.
• Blogs. A contraction between Web and log, it refers to a form of online digital diary. In essence it is a Web site where an individual makes regular written journal entries that comprise a statement of opinion, a story, an analysis, description of events, or other material.
• Brainstorming Retreats. Company-organized social retreats designed to foster innovative ideas.
• Business Intelligence (BI). Using information technologies to provide decisionmakers with valuable information and knowledge by utilizing a variety of sources of data and structured and unstructured information, via the discovery of the relationships that may exist between these sources of data and information.
• Business Process. A network of activities performed by resources that transform inputs into outputs.
• Campaign Management Software. Software used to manage and monitor a company's communications with its customers.
• Case. A documented historical occurrence used for comparison to current problems, which is the basis of case-based reasoning (CBR).
• Case-based Reasoning (CBR). An intelligent reasoning process that seeks to solve new problems based on solutions of similar past problems, much like a lawyer seeks a new outcome on a trial based on precedents established by past legal cases.
• Case Library. A database of historical cases containing the universe of knowledge in a CBR system.
• Choosing Parameters from a Menu. In this method, the database system presents a list of parameters from which you can choose. This is perhaps the easiest way to pose a query because the menus guide you, but it is also the least flexible.
• Churn. The turnover of users, for example on an online service, especially after the expiration of a free-trial period.
• Classification. The grouping together of data sets according to some predefined similarity shared by all members of that set.
• Clickstream Analysis. A virtual trail that a user leaves behind while surfing the Internet. A clickstream is a record of a user's activity on the Internet, including every Web site and every page of every Web site that the user visits, how long the user was on a page or site, in what order the pages were visited, any newsgroups that the user participates in, and even the e-mail addresses of mail that the user sends and receives. Both ISPs and individual Web sites are capable of tracking a user's clickstream.
• Client. The client part of the client-server architecture. Typically, a client is an application that runs on a personal computer or workstation and relies on a server to perform some operations. For example, an e-mail client is an application that enables you to send and receive e-mail.
• Close-ended Questions. Questions asked of an expert that require a short answer or a number for answers. Used for gathering specific problem-solving knowledge.
• Cluster Analysis. The grouping together of data into groups or clusters according to a natural but undefined parameter shared by all members of the set or based on empirical computations of proximities across the members of the data set.
• Codifiability. Reflects the extent to which knowledge can be articulated or codified, even if the resulting codified knowledge might be difficult to impart to another individual.
• Collaborative-based Filtering. Recommends items (similar to the one being studied) that people have liked in the past.
• Collaborative Computing. Software systems designed to help people involved in a project or common task collaborate, typically through the Web, to achieve their goals. Includes e-mails, calendars, text and chat, wikis, etc.
• Collective Intelligence (or crowdsourcing or community-based design). Refers to the outsourcing of tasks to an undefined, large group of people or community in the form of an open call.
• Combination. Involves the synthesis of multiple bodies of explicit knowledge (and/or data and/or information) to create new, more complex sets of explicit knowledge. It is a process of systemizing concepts into a knowledge system. This may take place during activities such as sorting, adding, combining, and categorizing knowledge.
• Common Knowledge. Refers to the organization's cumulative experiences in comprehending a category of knowledge and activities and the organizing principles that support communication and coordination. It provides unity to the organization and includes a common language and vocabulary, recognition of individual knowledge domains, common cognitive schema, shared norms, and elements of specialized knowledge common across individuals sharing knowledge.
• Common Virtual System. The pinnacle of EAI; all aspects of enterprise computing are tied together so that they appear as a unified application.
• Community-based Design (or crowdsourcing or collective intelligence). Refers to the outsourcing of tasks to an undefined, large group of people or community in the form of an open call.
• Community of Practice (CoP). An organic and self-organized group of individuals who are dispersed geographically or organizationally but communicate regularly to discuss issues of mutual interest.
• Competitive Advantage. A situation where the focal organization outperforms its competitors, usually due to superior ability in some area.
• Complex Knowledge. Draws upon multiple distinct areas of expertise. It involves mastering several different pieces of knowledge organized in the form of a system.
• Computer-aided Design System (CAD System). A combination of hardware and software that enables engineers and architects to design everything from furniture to airplanes. In addition to the software CAD systems require a high-quality graphics monitor, a mouse, light pen, or digitizing tablet for drawing, and a special printer or plotter for printing design specifications. CAD systems allow an engineer to view a design from any angle with the push of a button and to zoom in or out for closeups and long-distance views. In addition, the computer keeps track of design dependencies so that when the engineer changes one value, all other values that depend on it are automatically changed accordingly.
• Concept Learning System. An algorithm that classifies a set of example data by building an inductive tree and distributing the examples throughout the tree.
• Concept Maps. These aim to represent knowledge through concepts and are enclosed in circles or boxes of some types, which are related via connecting lines or propositions.
• Constraint-based Reasoning. An artificial intelligence technique that uses essentially "what cannot be done" to guide the process of finding a solution.
• Constrained Processing Tasks. Artificial tasks given to an expert for the purpose of observing him and learning from his performance. The expert is typically constrained in terms of time available for the solution.
• Context. The background or environmental circumstances that surround a particular event or situation.
• Content-based Filtering. Recommendations based on what a person has liked in the past.
• Context-based Reasoning (CxBR). A human behavior representation paradigm specifically designed to effectively represent human tactical behavior.
• Context-Specific Knowledge. Refers to the knowledge of particular circumstances of time and place in which work is to be performed. It pertains to the organization and the organizational subunit within which tasks are performed.
• Contingency View of KM. Suggests that no "one approach" to managing knowledge is best under all circumstances.
• Cooker. Assists in the maintenance of soup-making equipment. It uses a personal computer as the delivery platform.
• Critic. Rules used for adapting the solution of a similar historical case to the current problem.
• Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM). An industryneutral and tool-neutral standard process for data mining. Starting from the embryonic knowledge discovery processes used in industry today and responding directly to user requirements, this project defined and validated a data mining process that is applicable in diverse industry sectors.
• Crowdsourcing (or community-based design or collective intelligence). Refers to the outsourcing of tasks to an undefined, large group of people or community in the form of an open call.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM). CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer, whether it be sales or services related. Computerization has changed the way companies are approaching their CRM strategies because it has also changed consumer-buying behavior. With each new advance in technology, especially the proliferation of self-service channels like the Web, more of the relationship is being managed electronically. Organizations are therefore looking for ways to personalize online experiences (a process also referred to as mass customization) through tools such as help desk software, e-mail organizers, and Web development applications.
• Customer Touchpoints. Refers to the steps in a business process, like a purchase transaction, or a software where it interfaces directly with the customer.
• Daemons. Functions attached to a frame that assist in obtaining values for slots or to maintain consistency in the frame system.
• Data. Comprise facts, observations, or perceptions (which may or may not be correct). By itself, data represent raw numbers or assertions and may therefore be devoid of context, meaning, or intent.
• Database (DB). A large collection of data organized for rapid search and retrieval. Programs that manage data and can be used to store, retrieve, and sort information. You can think of a database as an electronic filing system. A relational database is a database that stores data in the form of related tables. Relational databases are powerful because they require few assumptions about how data are related or how they will be extracted from the database. As a result, the same database can be viewed in many different ways.
• Database Linking. Databases that share information and duplicate information as needed.
• Data Mining (DM). A class of database applications that look for hidden patterns in a group of data that can be used to predict future behavior. For example, data mining software can help retail companies find customers with common interests. The term is commonly misused to describe software that presents data in new ways. True data mining software doesn't just change the presentation but actually discovers previously unknown relationships among the data.
• Data Mining Group (DMG). An independent, vendor led consortium that develops data mining standards, such as Predictive Model Markup Language (PMLL) supported by approximately 20 vendors.
• Data Warehouse. A collection of data designed to support management decisionmaking. Data warehouses contain a wide variety of data that present a coherent picture of business conditions at a single point in time. The development of a data warehouse includes development of systems to extract data from operating systems plus installation of a warehouse database system that provides managers flexible access to the data. The term data warehousing generally refers to combining many different databases across an entire enterprise. A data mart is defined as a database, or collection of databases, designed to help managers make strategic decisions about their business. Whereas a data warehouse combines databases across an entire enterprise, data marts are usually smaller and focus on a particular subject or department. Some data marts, called dependent data marts, are subsets of larger data warehouses.
• Declarative Knowledge. Focuses on beliefs about relationships among variables. Characterized as "know what," it can be stated in the form of propositions, expected correlations, or formulas relating concepts represented as variables.
• Deep Expertise. More theoretical knowledge acquired through formal training and hands-on problem-solving.
• Deployment. Implementing the live model within an organization to aid the decisionmaking process.
• Development Environment. A program used to develop the knowledge for the knowledge-based system and provides the inference mechanism used to exercise the knowledge to solve a problem or answer a question posed by the end user.
• Diagrammatic Reasoning. An artificial intelligence technique that aims to understand concepts and ideas using diagrams that represent knowledge.
• Direction. The process through which the individual possessing the knowledge guides the action of another individual without transferring to him the knowledge underlying the direction.
• Disjunctions. Otherwise identical cases with different solutions.
• Document Management Systems. Computer systems that provide a Web-based repository accessible from multiple points. The systems also provide a collaborative environment for several clients to work on electronic documents simultaneously.
• Domain Expert. An individual who is both experienced and knowledgeable about a particular application domain.
• Domain Knowledge. Relevant knowledge about a problem domain; knowledge embedded in the operators of the solution space.
• Downsizing. To reduce a unit's size, such as that of an organization in terms of its number of employees.
• Dynamic. Refers to actions that take place at the moment they are needed rather than in advance.
• Dynamic Web Documents. Web pages created by the Web server in response to the specific request by the client.
• Economy of Scale. A firm's output is said to exhibit economy of scale when as the amount of its output is increased, average costs (i.e., total costs divided by the output) decline.
• Economy of Scope. A firm's output exhibits economy of scope when the total cost of that same firm producing two (or more) different products is less than sum of the costs that would be incurred if each product was produced separately by a different company.
• Effectiveness. Performing the most suitable processes and making the best possible decisions.
• Efficiency. Performing the processes quickly and in a low-cost fashion.
• Eliza. Early AI implementation. It used a natural language interface to act as an artificial psychoanalyst, carrying on a dialogue with a patient.
• EMYCIN. Knowledge-based system shell. Developed by removing the domainspecific knowledge from MYCIN.
• Encryption. The translation of data into a secret code. Encryption is the most effective way to achieve data security. To read an encrypted file, you must have access to a secret key or password that enables you to decrypt it. Unencrypted data is called plain text; encrypted data is referred to as cipher text.
• End User. The person for whom the product was designed by the person who programs, services, or installs the product.
• Enterprise Application Integration Technology (EAI Technology). EAI is the unrestricted sharing of data and business processes throughout the networked applications or data sources in an organization. Early software programs in areas such as inventory control, human resources, sales automation, and database management were designed to run independently with no interaction between the systems. They were custom built in the technology of the day for a specific need being addressed and were often proprietary systems. As enterprises grow and recognize the need for their information and applications to have the ability to be transferred across and shared among systems, companies are investing in EAI in order to streamline processes and keep all the elements of the enterprise interconnected.
• Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP System). A business management system that integrates all facets of the business including planning, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. As the ERP methodology has become more popular, software applications have emerged to help business managers implement ERP in business activities such as inventory control, order tracking, customer service, finance, and human resources.
• Enterprise System. Literally, a business organization. In the computer industry, the term is often used to describe any large organization that utilizes computers. An Intranet, for example, is a good example of an enterprise computing system.
• Evaluation. Evaluation of a case in the case library for similarity with the current problem.
• Exchange. Used for communicating or transferring explicit knowledge among individuals, groups, and organizations.
• Expected Value. The value a variable is expected to have, based on the probability distribution of its various observed values. Computed by summing the product of each possible value for a variable and its probability of occurrence.
• Experience Management. Encompasses the processes governing creation, storage, reuse, maintenance, dissemination, and evaluation of experience relevant to a particular situation or problem-solving context.
• Expertise. Refers to knowledge of higher quality—that is, specific knowledge at its best. One who possesses expertise is able to perform a task much better than those who do not.
• Expertise Locator System (ELS). A system to catalog knowledge competencies, including information not typically captured by human resources systems, in a way that could later be queried across the organization.
• Explicit Knowledge. Refers to knowledge that has been expressed into words and numbers. Such knowledge can be shared formally and systematically in the form of data, specifications, manuals, drawings, audio and videotapes, programs, patents, and so forth.
• Exploratory Analysis of Data (with OLAP). Refers to the use of online analytical processing (OLAP) for creating complex queries across a multidimensional data model for the purpose of business reporting.
• Externalization. Involves converting tacit knowledge into explicit forms such as words, concepts, visuals, or figurative language (e.g., metaphors, analogies, and narratives).
• Facets. Subdivisions of a frame slot that contain various types of information related to the slot.
• Facilitator. Leader or chairperson of a brainstorming session.
• Fact Base. A data structure that holds all assertions made either by the system or provided as inputs. These assertions serve as facts for matching premises in an inference chain.
• Fault Diagnosis. Software used to try to determine the causes of a malfunction, also known as a fault, in particular in a piece of equipment.
• Firewall. A system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software or a combination of both. Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks connected to the Internet, especially Intranets. All messages entering or leaving the Intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria.
• Flat Case Libraries. Case library organization where all cases lie at the same hierarchical level in the case library.
• Folksonomy. Refers to a system of classification through the collaborative creation and translation of tags to annotate and categorize content. For example, multiple users can tag content with a variety of terms that constitute the metadata for indexing that content. The folksonomy enables the searchability of content through the textual description.
• Forward Reasoning. Reasoning from inputs to conclusions.
• Frames. Structured framework for storing and retrieving knowledge best organized as attribute value pairs. Composed of slots.
• Game-playing. Programming computers to play games such as chess and checkers.
• GenAID. Remotely monitors and diagnoses the status of large electrical generators in real time. It issues a diagnosis with a confidence factor whenever the machine is operating outside its normal operating conditions. It is presently in commercial operation at various sites throughout the United States.
• Generalization. The opposite of specialization. When a frame is more general than its child frame. This is the normal situation.
• General Knowledge. Is possessed by a large number of individuals and can be transferred easily across individuals.
• General Knowledge-gathering Interview Sessions. Interview sessions designed to elicit general domain knowledge from the expert.
• General Problem Solver (GPS). Early AI implementation, which demonstrated ability to solve problems by searching for an answer in a solution space.
• Goal State. Final desired state of a problem in the solution space.
• Graphical User Interface (GUI). A program interface that takes advantage of the computer's graphics capabilities to make the program easier to use. Well-designed graphical user interfaces can free the user from learning complex command languages. On the other hand, many users find that they work more effectively with a commanddriven interface, especially if they already know the command language.
• Groupware. A class of software that helps groups of colleagues (workgroups) attached to a network organize their activities, in particular collaborate on tasks and achieve common goals.
• GUIDON. An instructional program for teaching students therapy for patients with bacterial infections. GUIDON is a descendant of MYCIN and was developed as a research tool at Stanford University.
• Hacking. The pejorative sense of the term hacker is becoming more prominent largely because the popular press has co-opted the term to refer to individuals who gain unauthorized access to computer systems for the purpose of stealing and corrupting data.
• Help Desk Technologies. Software used to aid the operations of a help desk, which is used to troubleshoot problems with computers or other similar products. The help desk technologies help to track requests for service as well as to diagnose potential reasons for the problem.
• Heterogeneous Networks. Networks consisting of computers with different processors and/or different operating systems.
• Heuristic Functions. Used in solution space searches to compute the desirability of moving on to each of the possible next states based on some general knowledge. These states are ranked in order of decreasing desirability.
• Heuristics. Common-sense knowledge drawn from experience to solve problems. Represents rules-of-thumb and other such shortcuts to the solution that are only learned through experience. This is in contrast to algorithmic programming, which is based on a deterministic sequence of steps procedures. Heuristic programs do not always reach the very best result but usually produce a good result.
• Heuristic Search. A search that uses heuristic functions as a guide to determine where in the problem space to search next.
• Human Computer Interface (HCI). The interface between a human and a computer; for example, a command line interface, a graphical user interface, virtual reality interfaces.
• Hyperlink. In a computer document, refers to a word, phrase, or picture on which a reader may click or hover over, to move automatically to another part of the document, another document, or web page.
• Hypertext Markup Language (html). A standard representation for text and graphics that allows the browser to interpret the intentions of the Web page designer. Hypertext is text with Hyperlinks.
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http). A transfer protocol used for exchanging hypertext.
• Indexing. The act of classifying and providing an index in order to make items easier to retrieve.
• Inference Chain. A sequence of rules in a rule-based system where the assertions of an upstream rule serve as the facts to match the premises of downstream rules.
• Inferential DM. Models that explain the relationships that exist in data. They may indicate the driving factors for stock market movement or show failure factors in printed circuit-board production.
• Information. A subset of data, only including those data that possess context, relevance, and purpose. Information typically involves the manipulation of raw data to obtain a more meaningful indication of trends or patterns in the data.
• Information Retrieval. The science of searching for documents, information, or metadata within documents in the Web, as well as for data within databases.
• Information Technology (IT). The broad subject concerned with all aspects of managing and processing information, especially within a large organization or company. Because computers are central to information management, computer departments within companies and universities are often called IT departments. Some companies refer to this department as IS (Information Systems) or MIS (Management Information Systems).
• Inheritance. The ability in frames and objects to conserve representational effort by having "children frame" contain all attributes and values possessed by its "parent frame."
• Initial State. Starting problem definition in a solution space.
• Innovation. Performing the processes in a creative and novel fashion that improves effectiveness and efficiency—or at least marketability.
• Innovators. Those who brainstorm the solutions to the customer's problem.
• Intellectual Capital. Knowledge that can be exploited for some moneymaking or other useful purpose. The term combines the idea of the intellect or brainpower with the economic concept of capital—that is, that intellect like capital can be used in service of the saving of entitled benefits so that they can be invested in producing more goods and services.
• Intelligent Program. A concept where the end user sees the knowledge-based system as a black box that provides intelligent problem-solving capability without the ability to see its components. It is composed of a knowledge base, an inference engine, and a development environment.
• Internalization. The conversion of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge. It represents the traditional notion of "learning."
• Internet. A computer network protocol able to interconnect heterogeneous networks.
• Inter-page Structures. Evaluate the arrangement of the various HTML or XML tags that connect one page to another.
• Interviews. The time of interaction with an expert for the purposes of eliciting his/her knowledge.
• Intra-page Structures. Evaluate the arrangement of the various HTML or XML tags within a page.
• Iterative. This is a programming term. It refers to a process that can be described by a fixed number of variables and a set of rules, which describe what happens to those variables to achieve the next step of the process. If the process is interrupted, it can be continued if the state of all the variables is known. Contrast this to a recursive process. Iteration is a single step.
• JavaScript. A dynamic computer language typically used as part of web browsers, which allow client-side scripts for Web pages to interact with the user and communicate asynchronously, among other functionality frequently required for gaming and mobile applications.
• Just-in-time Manufacturing (JIT Manufacturing). An ideal method of manufacturing with minimal waste, short cycle times, and fast communication that can respond rapidly to changing circumstances.
• Kickoff Interview. The first interview in the process of knowledge elicitation.
• Knowledge. Intrinsically different from information. Knowledge in an area is defined as justified beliefs about relationships among concepts relevant to that particular area.
• Knowledge Application. The process through which knowledge is utilized within the organization to make decisions and perform tasks, thereby contributing to organizational performance.
• Knowledge-based Systems. A computerized system that uses domain knowledge to arrive at a solution to a problem within that domain. This solution is essentially the same as one decided upon by a person knowledgeable about the domain when confronted with the same problem.
• Knowledge Capture. The process of eliciting knowledge (either explicit or tacit) that resides within people, artifacts, or organizational entities and representing it in an electronic form such as a knowledge-based system, for later reuse or retrieval.
• Knowledge Creation. An activity that catalyzes the innovation of knowledge.
• Knowledge Discovery. The development of new tacit or explicit knowledge from data and information or from the synthesis of prior knowledge.
• Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD). The process of data selection, data cleaning, transfer to a DM technique, applying the DM technique, validating the results of the DM technique, and finally interpreting them for the user.
• Knowledge Elicitation. The process of obtaining tacit knowledge from an expert for the purposes of making that knowledge explicit.
• Knowledge Engineering. The process of developing a knowledge-based system.
• Knowledge Management (KM). Can be defined as performing the activities involved in discovering, capturing, sharing, and applying knowledge in terms of resources, documents, and people skills, so as to enhance, in a cost-effective fashion, the impact of knowledge on the unit's goal achievement.
• Knowledge Management Foundations. The broad organizational aspects that support knowledge management in the long-term. They include knowledge management infrastructure, knowledge management mechanisms, and knowledge management technologies.
• Knowledge Management Infrastructure. The long-term foundation on which knowledge management resides. It includes five main components: organization culture, organization structure, information technology infrastructure, common knowledge, and physical environment.
• Knowledge Management Mechanisms. Organizational or structural means used to promote knowledge management. They may (or may not) utilize technology, but they do involve some kind of organizational arrangement or social or structural means of facilitating KM.
• Knowledge Management Processes. The broad processes that help in discovering, capturing, sharing, and applying knowledge.
• Knowledge Management Solutions. The ways in which specific aspects of knowledge management (discovery, capture, sharing, and application of knowledge) can be accomplished. Knowledge management solutions include knowledge management processes and knowledge management systems.
• Knowledge Management Systems (KMS). Integrate technologies and mechanisms to support KM processes.
• Knowledge Repository. A system to share knowledge. Also known as a document management system and content management systems and serve primarily to share unstructured information.
• Knowledge Sharing. The process through which explicit or tacit knowledge is communicated to other individuals.
• Lateral Thinking. Using an entirely different approach to solve a problem. In any self-organizing system there is a need to escape from a local optimum in order to move towards a more global optimum. The techniques of lateral thinking, such as provocation, are designed to help that change.
• Learning. The process of improving one's performance by experiencing an activity or observing someone else experience that activity. Learning has been one goal of artificially intelligent systems.
• Lessons Learned Systems (LLS). The goal of LLS is to capture and provide lessons that can benefit employees who encounter situations that closely resemble a previous experience in a similar situation.
• Limited Information Tasks. Artificial tasks given to an expert to perform with limited information. Used to place the expert in a situation where he will be challenged. Serve to observe the expert in problem-solving without danger of failure.
• Linear Regression. A statistical procedure for predicting the value of a dependent variable from an independent variable when the relationship between the variables can be described with a linear model.
• Machine Learning. Machine learning refers to the ability of computers to automatically acquire new knowledge—learning from, for example, past cases or experience, from the computer's own experiences, or from exploration.
• Many-on-Many Interviews. Interview sessions in which several knowledge engineers interact with several experts.
• Mashup. A program or Web site that combines two or more online software products, typically integrating multiple application programming interfaces, and thus combining the data or functionality of the original services.
• Market Basket Analysis. An algorithm that examines a long list of transactions in order to determine which items are most frequently purchased together.
• Metadata. Data about data. Metadata describes how, when, and by whom a particular set of data was collected and how the data are formatted. Metadata are essential for understanding information stored in data warehouses.
• Metaphor. One thing conceived as representing another—a symbol.
• Method of Least Squares. A statistical method of finding the best-fitting straight line or other theoretically derived curve for a group of experimental data points.
• Methodology. A body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry; a set of working methods.
• Metrics. A set of measures used to evaluate performance of a task or an organizational unit.
• Mission-Critical Objectives. A set of organizational goals that include both the purpose of the organization and its scope of operations critical to operationalize and accomplish the set of organizational goals. They must be measurable, specific, appropriate, realistic, and timely.
• Model-based Reasoning (MBR). An intelligent reasoning technique that uses a model of an engineered system to simulate its normal behavior. The simulated operation is compared to the behavior of a real system and noted discrepancies can lead to a diagnosis.
• Motor Skills Expertise. Physical rather than cognitive knowledge. This type of knowledge is difficult for knowledge-based systems to emulate. Examples include riding a bicycle and hitting a baseball.
• MYCIN. Early knowledge-based system developed in the early 1970s. Developed to diagnose and specify treatments for blood disorders through a Q&A session with a physician. It is the most significant and renowned research system, for it pioneered the separation of the knowledge from the way it is used.
• Narrative. A narrated account; a story.
• Narrowcast. To send data to a specific list of recipients. Cable television is an example of narrowcasting since the cable TV signals are sent only to homes that have subscribed to the cable service. In contrast, network TV uses a broadcast model in which the signals are transmitted everywhere, and anyone with an antenna can receive them.
• Natural Language. Programming computers to understand natural human languages.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP). A branch of artificial intelligence that deals with analyzing, understanding, and generating the languages that humans use naturally in order to interface with computers in both written and spoken contexts using natural human languages instead of computer languages.
• Normalization. In data processing, a process applied to all data in a set that produce a specific statistical property. For example, monthly expenditures can be divided by total expenditures to produce a normalized value that represents a percentage.
• Object Oriented Programming (OOP). Refers to a special type of programming that combines data structures with functions to create reusable objects.
• Observables. A physical property, such as weight or temperature, that can be observed or measured directly as distinguished from a quantity, such as work or entropy, that must be derived from observed quantities.
• Observational Elicitation. The process of observing an expert perform a task in order to learn his/her process for performing the task. Can be quiet observation or interactive.
• One-line Diagram. Drawing depicting the connectivity of an engineered system.
• One-on-Many Interviews. Interview sessions in which one knowledge engineer interacts with several experts.
• One-on-One Interview. An interview in which one knowledge engineer and one expert participate.
• Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). A category of software tools that provides analysis of data stored in a database. OLAP tools enable users to analyze different dimensions of multidimensional data. For example, it provides time series and trend analysis views. The chief component of OLAP is the OLAP server, which sits between a client and a database management system (DBMS). The OLAP server understands how data are organized in the database and has special functions for analyzing the data. There are OLAP servers available for nearly all the major database systems. In essence OLAP enables to summarize, aggregate, or selectively extract data from different points of view.
• Ontology. Description of the concepts and relationships that can exist for an agent or a community of agents.
• Open-ended Questions. Questions asked of the expert, which require a narrative and/or long explanation. Used for gathering general domain knowledge.
• Open Source. A broad general type of software license that makes source code available to the general public with relaxed or nonexistent copyright restrictions.
• Output-Input-Middle Method. Method used to organize knowledge elicited during expert interviews.
• Predictive Data Mining. Models may or may not explain relationships. Primarily, they make predictions of output conditions given a set of input conditions.
• Probability. A number expressing the likelihood that a specific event will occur, expressed as the ratio of the number of actual occurrences to the number of possible occurrences.
• Procedural Knowledge. Focuses on beliefs relating sequences of steps or actions to desired (or undesired) outcomes. It may be viewed as "know-how."
• Proposition. A statement that affirms or denies something.
• Prospector. A system that assists geologists in identifying geological formations that may contain mineral deposits. The program elicited, preserved, and reused geologic formation knowledge to assist in mineral exploration.
• Prototype. An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages.
• Proxy Server. A server that sits between a client application, such as a Web browser, and a real server. It intercepts all requests to the real server to see if it can fulfill the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to the real server.
• Qualiative KM Assessments. Evaluation of knowledge management using perceptions and interpretations rather than based on numerical scores.
• Quantitative KM Assessments. Produce specific numerical scores indicating how well an organization, an organizational subunit, or an individual is performing with respect to KM. They may be based on a survey, in financial terms, such as the ROI or cost savings, or may include such ratios or percentages as employee-retention rate.
• Query. A request for information from a database.
• Query by Example (QBE). In this method, the system presents a blank record and lets you specify the fields and values that define the query.
• Query Language. Many database systems require you to make requests for information in the form of a stylized query that must be written in a special query language. This is the most complex method because it forces you to learn a specialized language, but it is also the most powerful.
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). The combination of radio broadcast with radar technology and consists of two parts. First is an RFID tag, which is an integrated circuit that modulates and demodulates a radio frequency signal and processes and stores information. The second part is an antenna that receives and transmits the signal.
• Random Search. A search that has no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.
• Recontextualized Knowledge. Existing knowledge is re-created using alternative and innovative knowledge technologies and mechanisms.
• Repertory Grids. Table associating attributes of several subjects with respect to two diametrically opposed extremes. Used to organize elicited knowledge. Its use can be easily automated.
• Retrieval. Obtaining a case from the library that matches the description of the current problem.
• Reverse Engineering. The process of recreating a design by analyzing a final product. Reverse engineering is common in both hardware and software.
• Rocketry. The science and technology of rocket design, construction, and flight.
• Role Reversal. Elicitation technique where the expert and the knowledge engineer exchange roles, and the expert interviews the knowledge engineer. Can serve to verify already elicited knowledge.
• Routines. The utilization of knowledge embedded in procedures, rules, and norms that guide future behavior.
• Search-Retrieve-Propose. The process upon which case-based reasoning is founded. A case is sought, compared to the current problem, retrieved if it is similar, and its solution proposed as the solution to the current problem.
• Security. Refers to techniques for ensuring that data stored in a computer cannot be read by unauthorized users or compromised. Most security measures involve data encryption and passwords. Data encryption is the translation of data into a form that is unintelligible without a deciphering mechanism. A password is a secret word or phrase that gives a user access to a particular program or system.
• Semantic Networks. A directed graph in which concepts are represented as nodes and relations between concepts are represented as links.
• Server. A computer or device on a network that manages network resources. For example, a file server is a computer and storage device dedicated to storing files. Any user on the network can store files on the server. A print server is a computer that manages one or more printers, and a network server is a computer that manages network traffic. A database server is a computer system that processes database queries.
• Shell. Development environment designed to exercise domain knowledge expressed as rules and to arrive at solutions or answers to questions.
• Shifting character or context. Fictional anecdotes where the characters may be shifted to study the new perspective of the story.
• Simple Knowledge. Knowledge related to one basic area.
• Slot. The attribute of a frame to which a value or set of values is assigned. Consists of facets.
• Socialization. The integration of multiple streams of tacit knowledge for the creation of new knowledge through social means. Socialization is the process of sharing experiences and thereby creating tacit knowledge, such as shared mental models and technical skills.
• Social Networks. A group of individuals with ties or interpersonal relationships that may be based on information technology.
• Solution Space. Contains the actions, states, or beliefs that represent the status of the problem. The solution is a sequence of steps through these actions, beliefs, or states starting from the initial state to the goal state.
• Specialization. Could be used when a child frame is more specific than its parent frame; the basis for inheritance, or in an organizational context where individuals focus on, and gain expertise in, a particular area.
• Specific Knowledge. Knowledge that is particular to a situation such as a context area or a specific context. Is usually possessed by a limited number of individuals and is expensive to transfer.
• Specific Problem-solving Interview Sessions. Interview sessions where the objective is to gather specific problem-solving knowledge.
• Stakeholder. One who has a share or an interest as in an enterprise.
• Static Web Documents. Web documents designed a priori, consisting of nonactive HTML.
• Stemming Algorithm. Used to remove the suffix of a word.
• Stoplists. Used to eliminate words that are not good concept descriptions. A group of words that are not considered to have any indexing value. These include common words such as "and," "the," and "there."
• Storage Law. Data storage capacity doubles every 9 months. This law has been in operation for over 10 years now. Storage Law is related to Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors on CPUs doubles about every 18 months.
• Storytelling. The act or practice of telling a story.
• Strategic Knowledge. Knowledge regarding the long-term positioning of the organization in terms of its corporate vision and strategies for achieving that vision.
• Structured Knowledge. Knowledge that is best represented through attribute value pairs; knowledge not conditional in nature.
• Support Knowledge. Relevant knowledge, usually related to organizational infrastructure and facilitates day-to-day operations.
• Surrogates. A substitute that replaces someone or something equivalent.
• Symbol Manipulation. Refers to using symbols for solving problems; basis of symbolic AI.
• Synergy. The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.
• Systematic Blind Search. Follows a systematic, exhaustive method to find target. Does not use any knowledge. Can be very time-consuming.
• Tacit Knowledge. Includes insights, intuitions, and hunches. It is difficult to express and formalize and therefore difficult to share.
• Tactical Knowledge. Knowledge used to decide course of action to achieve a specific goal in a dynamically changing environment; pertains to the short-term positioning of the organization relative to its markets, competitors, and suppliers.
• Talking Head. A talking head or avatar is an image selected to represent oneself. Talking heads could be a photograph, a cartoon character, or an animated image driven by the user's voice including lip-synchronization.
• Task Interdependence. The extent to which the subunit's achievement of its goals depends on the efforts of other subunits.
• Task Uncertainty. The extent to which the organizational subunit encounters difficulty in predicting the nature of its tasks. High uncertainty implies changing problems and tasks, which reduces the unit's ability to develop routines.
• Teachability. Reflects the extent to which the knowledge can be taught to other individuals through training, apprenticeship, and so on.
• Technically Specific Knowledge. Deep knowledge about a specific discipline or content area. It includes knowledge about the tools and techniques that may be used to address problems in that area.
• Ten-fold Cross Validation. Cross-validation is a method for assessing how the results of a statistical analysis will generalize to a data set. In particular for predictive models, part of the data set is used to train the model, and the remaining is used to test the model. For tenfold cross validation the data set of n observations is divided, with random selection of examples into ten partitions (folds) of equal sizes, each of size n/10, of which 9 partitions are used to train the model and one is used to test the model.
• Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency (TFIDF). Highlights terms that are frequently used in one document but infrequently used across the collection of documents.
• Text Mining. Automatically reading large documents of text and deriving knowledge from the process.
• Touchpoints. Refers to the steps in a business process, like a purchase transaction, or software when it interfaces with the customer directly.
• Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A format for specifying Internet addresses; the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web.
• Universalistic View of KM. Implies that there is a single best approach of managing knowledge that should be adopted by all organizations in all circumstances.
• User Interface. The screen and dialogue format seen by the user when working with a particular computer program.
• Value-added Products. New or improved products that provide a significant additional value as compared to earlier products. Value-added products benefit from knowledge management due to increased knowledge or enhanced organizational process innovation.
• Variable. A symbol or name that represents a concept that can take one or more different values.
• Virus. A program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Viruses can also replicate themselves. All computer viruses are manmade. A simple virus that can copy itself over and over again is relatively easy to produce. Even such a simple virus is dangerous because it will quickly use all available memory and bring the system to a halt. An even more dangerous type of virus is one capable of transmitting itself across networks and bypassing security systems.
• Weak-theory Domains. Domains where robust theoretical explanations do not exist, or if they exist, they contain uncertainty.
• Web 2.0. A term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and Web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, collaboration, and functionality of the Web.
• Web 3.0. Refers to the semantic Web and personalization, or the use of autonomous agents to perform some tasks for the user.
• Web Content Mining. Discovers what a Web page is about and how to uncover new knowledge from it.
• Web Crawling. Refers to the use of computer programs that visit Web sites continuously and regularly, acquiring information for use in search engines.
• Web Mining. Web crawling with online text mining.
• Web Structure Mining. Examines how Web documents are structured; attempts to discover the model underlying the link structures of the Web.
• Web Usage Mining. Identification of patterns in user navigation through Web surfing.
• Wicked Problem. Describes a problem that is one-of-a-kind and is difficult or impossible to solve, or one that may have contradicting requirements. For example, ERP implementations offer have both financial and accuracy requirements that contradict each other: accuracy requires more time to implement, but low cost requires expedited completion.
• Wiki. A page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content using a simplified markup language.
• Workflow Management System (WfMS). A system that provides procedural automation of a business process by managing the sequence of work activities and by managing the required resources (people, data, and applications) associated with the various activity steps. Computer programs that provide a method of capturing the steps, which lead to the completion of a project within a fixed time frame.
• World Wide Web (WWW). A format that enables large-scale storage of documents to be easily accessed by a user via a browser.
• XCON. One of the earliest commercially successful systems, XCON assists in the configuration of newly ordered VAX computer systems. Developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in conjunction with Carnegie-Mellon University XCON elicited, preserved, and reused the knowledge of human configurators of computer systems in order to automate and duplicate their functions.