KITA 2015 Abstracts

Short Papers
Short Papers
Paper Nr: 1
Title:

“Objectivity” and “Situativity” in Knowledge It Artifacts - Incommensurable but Sensible Dimensions in Different Contexts
Authors:

Carla Simone
Abstract: The main claim of the paper is that in order to design Knowledge IT Artifacts it is necessary to uncover the Knowledge Artifacts that are currently in use (situativity) and to make the related technology respect the practices around them. The alternative dimension (objectivity) can be leveraged when such KA are not recognizable but in this case the tools characterizing this dimension can be used but with different purposes. This claim is based on a series of empirical studies in real settings that show how the local conditions play a fundamental role in the identification of the requirements of a technology supporting learning and problem solving.
Download
Paper Nr: 3
Title:

KM and KA in International Coooperation - Lesson from the K-Link project in Central Asia
Authors:

Gianluca Colombo, Alessio Vertemati, Emanuele Panzeri, Eva Grolíková and Philipp Reichmut
Abstract: The K-Link initiative concerns a Knowledge Management (KM) solution for Central Asian institutions committed to Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and Natural Resource Management (NRM) projects implementation in the framework of international development cooperation. It supplies a technical solution based on the use of a distributed network in which all data and information remain stored on each institution’s server and can be accessed from each institution’s website without the need to create a central hub. Plugged into pre-existing content management platforms that run at the end-users institutions side, K-Link extends those systems with information retrieval, management and sharing features. One of the main issues regarding the sharing of documents in the Central Asian context actually regards motivations for sharing. In fact the trigger for information sharing in Sustainable Land Management in Central Asia (SLM) is given by the management of information. This principle verified and tested with the participant institutions led to the resolution to design and implement a specific Document Management System (K-DMS) in order to allow end users to get to know the sharing features of K-Link as special cases of more general information management ones. The K-DMS represents computer-based environment for the production and sharing of knowledge artifacts.
Download
Paper Nr: 4
Title:

Knowledge Artifacts: When Society Objectifies Itself in Knowledge
Authors:

Andrea Cerroni
Abstract: The paper deals with knowledge artifacts as knowledge socially objectified. A typology of knowledge is considered, comprising forms (intellectual, practical, objectified); families (knowings, acquaintances, acknowledges) and kinds (for objectified knowledge: encapsulated, environments, symbols). A model for knowledge-society (as a new societal layer sedimenting over precedent ones) is also introduced in four logic phases (generation; institutionalization; diffusion; socialization) in order to show the mechanisms for its production.
Download
Paper Nr: 5
Title:

The Misfits in Knowledge Work - Grasping the Essence with the Lens of the IT Knowledge Artefact
Authors:

Louise Harder Fischer and Lene Pries-heje
Abstract: The workplace is changing rapidly and knowledge work is conducted increasingly in settings that are global, digital, flat and networked. The epicenter of value-creation are the individuals and their interactions. Unified Communication and Collaboration Technology (UC&C) supports individual interactions, collaboration and knowledge creation. The use of this technology is growing globally. In a previous study, we found that UC&C in collocated and distributed settings, produced misfits and fits between situated enacted practice-use of UC&C and the experienced productivity. We respond to the KITA 2015 call with this work-in-progress paper. We apply the IT Knowledge Artefact (ITKA)-interpretive lens from Cabitza and Locoro (2014) to a case of knowledge workers struggling with appropriation of UC&C for creating and sharing practice knowledge. We evaluate the framework - and discuss the usefulness of the lens in this specific setting. To further improve and enrich, we pose questions, aiming at contributing to the communication of valuable insights informing the design and use of future ITKAs in knowledge work.
Download
Paper Nr: 6
Title:

Mapping the Knowledge Artifact Terrain - A Quantitative Resource for Qualitative Research
Authors:

Federico Cabitza and Angela Locoro
Abstract: In this paper, we present a method by which to build a metaphorical map of a portion of the scholarly literature along conceptual dimensions that have been previously characterized in terms of positive, negative and neutral terms. The method allows to “locate” scholarly works in this space, according to multiple criteria, like the definitions that they contain; the relevant concepts that can be extracted by means of a content analysis; and relevant passages that researchers can extract in studying their content. The resulting maps are not representational, nor trying to extract any objective essence of a scientific contribution. Rather, they are resources for the qualitative research, review and interpretation of literature sources. As such, these maps are “knowledge artifacts” in themselves, as they visualize, so to say, the interpretation of a set of works by qualitative researchers, and allow to build a visual comprehension of topological and qualitative relationships between the considered literature contributions. We applied the method to the case of the “knowledge artifact” literature and report the main results in this paper.
Download
Paper Nr: 7
Title:

Retrieval, Visualization and Validation of Affinities between Documents
Authors:

Luis Trigo, Martin Víta, Rui Sarmento and Pavel Brazdil
Abstract: We present an Information Retrieval tool that facilitates the task of the user when searching for a particular information that is of interest to him. Our system processes a given set of documents to produce a graph, where nodes represent documents and links the similarities. The aim is to offer the user a tool to navigate in this space in an easy way. It is possible to collapse/expand nodes. Our case study shows affinity groups based on the similarities of text production of researchers. This goes beyond the already established communities revealed by co-authorship. The system characterizes the activity of each author by a set of automatically generated keywords and by membership to a particular affinity group. The importance of each author is highlighted visually by the size of the node corresponding to the number of publications and different measures of centrality. Regarding the validation of the method, we analyse the impact of using different combinations of titles, abstracts and keywords on capturing the similarity between researchers.
Download
Paper Nr: 9
Title:

Case based Reasoning as a Tool to Improve Microcredit
Authors:

Mohammed Jamal Uddin, Giuseppe Vizzari and Stefania Bandini
Abstract: This paper will discuss the possibility to adopt the Case-Based Reasoning approach to improve microcredit initiatives. In particular, we will consider the Kiva microcredit system, which provides a characterisation (rating) of the risk associated to the field partner supporting the loan, but not of the specific borrower which would benefit from it. We will discuss how the combination of available historical data on loans and their outcomes (structured as a case base) and available knowledge on how to evaluate the risk associated to a loan request (exploited to actually rate past cases and therefore bootstrap the CBR system), can be used to provide the end-users with an indication of the risk rating associated to a loan request based on similar past situations. From this perspective, the case-base and the codified knowledge about how to evaluate risks associated to a loan represent two examples of knowledge IT artifacts.
Download
Paper Nr: 10
Title:

Digital Platorms as Knowledge Artifacts for Clusters of SMEs
Authors:

Aurelio Ravarini and Luca Cremona
Abstract: Previous studies widely focused on the adoption and usage of Knowledge Management Systems within a single organization or within supply chains providing little explanations of the relations behind knowledge sharing through a digital platform and performances in a cluster of firms. To overcome this void we adopted Knowledge Artifact as a driving concept, and carried out a systematic literature review over 200 articles and identified a theoretical framework that extends the limitations of previous studies basing on three main pillars, then applied this framework on a multiple case study conducted on six SMEs within a cluster of firms in Italy. The results contribute in explaining the variables that influence performance of firms using a digital platform and allow better defining the concept of knowledge artifact according to the situated perspective. This article has been developed under the DiDIY project funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644344.
Download
Paper Nr: 8
Title:

Discovering Communities of Similar R&D Projects
Authors:

Martin Víta
Abstract: Datasets about research projects contain knowledge that is valuable for several types of subjects working in the R&D field – including innovative companies, research institutes and universities even individual researchers or research teams, as well as funding providers. The main goal of this paper is to introduce a software tool based on a reusable methodology that allows us to deal with similarity of projects in order to group them and provide a deeper insight into a structure of considered set of projects in a visual way. In our approach we use several concepts developed in social network analysis.
Download