Organizational Memory Information Systems Research Articles

Quality and Evaluation of Information Systems in Institutional Organizations: Archives and Libraries

The factors affecting the success and efficiency of information systems are always an important and critical aspect for the structure, proper operation, and improvement of the produced services and products of an organization for its end users-both for the internal ones (employees) and for the external ones (public). At the present, the need to create suitable parameters, assisting in evaluating and measuring the successful operation of an information system in an organization is constantly growing. The purpose of the specific thesis is, firstly, to introduce us to the environment of the organizations’ information systems, while also providing us with a complete and extended presentation of their operations, processes, infrastructures, and factors of success. Through Systems Theory, we shall examine the analysis and design for an information system, while identifying the quality parameters necessary for measuring its success. In addition, we shall employ the model for measuring quality for an information system called: “DeLone & McLean Information Systems success model”. We shall see what each parameter of the above model examines by investigating concepts such as system quality, information quality, user satisfaction, effect of quality onuses and organization. At the same time, we shall develop an application for evaluating the quality of an information system, the so-called: "Organizational Memory Information Systems Quality" which builds on the success model of DeLone & McLean. The main objective of this thesis is to reach into a fruitful discussion regarding quality in the operation, infrastructure, and provided services of institutional organizations. Moreover, we shall focus on the usefulness and importance of measuring factors regarding efficiency for an information system, as this procedure is used by modern Society of Information, in order to be transformed to Society of Knowledge.

KMS re-contextualization – recognizing learnings from OMIS research

PurposeDeployment of knowledge management systems (KMSs) suffers from low adoption in organizational reality that is attributed to a lack of perceivable added value for people in actual work situations. Poor task/technology fit in the process of knowledge retrieval appears to be a major factor influencing this issue. Existing research indicates a lack of re-contextualizing stored information provided by KMSs in a particular situation. Existing research in the area of organizational memory information systems (OMISs) has thoroughly examined and widely discussed the topic of re-contextualization. The purpose of this paper, thus, is to examine how KMS design can benefit from OMIS research on approaches for re-contextualization in knowledge retrieval.Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines OMIS literature and inductively derives a categorization scheme for KMS according to their strategy of re-contextualizing knowledge. The authors have validated the scheme validated in a multiple case study that examines the differentiatory value of the scheme for approaches with various re-contextualization strategies.FindingsThe classification scheme allows a step-by-step selection of approaches for re-contextualization of information in KMS design and development derived from OMIS research. The case study has demonstrated the applicability of the developed scheme and shows that the differentiation criteria can be applied unambiguously.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of the chosen case study approach for validation, the validation results may lack generalizability.Practical implicationsThe scheme enables an informed selection of KMSs appropriate for a particular OMIS use case, as the scheme’s attributes serve as design rationale for a certain architecture or constellation of components. Developers can not only select from various approaches when designing re-contextualizaton but also come up with rationales for each candidate because of structured representation. Hence, stakeholders can be supported in a more informed way and design KMSs more effectively along organizational change processes.Originality/valueThe paper addresses an identified need for systematic characterization of KMS approaches and systems intending to meet the objectives of OMISs. As such, it allows streamlining further research in this field, as approaches can be judged according to their originality and positioned relative to each other.

INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND ORGANIZATIONAL MEMORY: A LITERATURE REVIEW THE LAST 20 YEARS

The advancement of technologies and Information Systems (IS) associated with the search for success in the competitive market leads organizations to seek strategies that assist in acquisition, retention, storage, and dissemination of knowledge in the organization in order to be reused in time, preserving its Organizational Memory (OM). Organizational Memory Information Systems (OMIS) emerge as an enhancer of the OM, providing effective support and resources for the organization, assisting in decision making, in the solution of problems, as well as in quality and development of products and services. This article is an analysis of some OMIS selected from a literature review about its features and functionality in order to understand how these information systems are seen by the organizations. With this research, we realized that the relationship between OM and IS is still inexpressive, even with the existence of some cases of success in the use of OMIS in the literature. The literature reveals that an individuals' knowledge is not integrated in information systems management process in most organizations; much of this knowledge is generated in the organization retained in an individual himself/herself. It is easy to see that there is a need for strategies and mechanisms in the organization to stimulate and provide better knowledge sharing between individuals which, when associated to IS, allows greater control and effective use of Organizational Memory.

Data architectures for an organizational memory information system

A framework is developed that supports the theoretical design of an organizational memory information system (OMIS). The framework provides guidance for managing the processing capabilities of an organization by matching knowledge location, flexibility, and processing requirements with data architecture. This framework is tested using three different sets of data attributes and data architectures from 147 business professionals that have experience in IS development. We find that trade‐offs exist between the amount of knowledge embedded in the data architecture and the flexibility of data architectures. This trade‐off is contingent on the characteristics of the set of tasks that the data architecture is being designed to support. Further, the match is important to consider in the design of OMIS database architecture.

The Characteristic and Success Factors of an Organizational Memory Information System

Data, information and knowledge have increased within organization across time. They become wasted memories due to retired staff, died or replace to another department. This could give great impact when intellectual capital do not being used wisely especially as competitive advantage element. Therefore, there is a need to manage memories accordingly. Otherwise, time, money and energy are wasted when the same task, research and findings need to be done repeatedly. This paper discusses the implementation of organizational memory system (OMS) which also known as organizational memory information system (OMIS). Before that, the basic theory of organizational memory (OM) will be described for better understanding. This paper indicates that there are 5 blocks of success factor to evaluate OMIS implementation; system quality, information quality, success measure in terms of usage, individual impact and organizational impact. OMS is proposed as a prototype to be implemented for the whole module of Faculty of Computer Science and Information System in order to protect their intellectual capital and optimizing the efficiency by managing organizational memory. The paper provides details of solution to academic management on the approach to making organizational memory information system work in practice. The approaches to manage memories in the model have yielded a number of benefits as demonstrated by a case study. This work will be beneficial to researchers and practitioner who are interested in applying OMIS in organization.

Effects of an ontology display with history representation on organizational memory information systems

Ontologies, as a possible element of organizational memory information systems, appear to support organizational learning. Ontology tools can be used to share knowledge among the members of an organization. However, current ontology-viewing user interfaces of ontology tools do not fully support organizational learning, because most of them lack proper history representation in their display. In this study, a conceptual model was developed that emphasized the role of ontology in the organizational learning cycle and explored the integration of history representation in the ontology display. Based on the experimental results from a split-plot design with 30 participants, two conclusions were derived: first, appropriately selected history representations in the ontology display help users to identify changes in the ontologies; and second, compatibility between types of ontology display and history representation is more important than ontology display and history representation in themselves.

Interface methods for using intranet portal organizational memory information system

In this paper, an intranet portal is considered as an information infrastructure (organizational memory information system, OMIS) supporting organizational learning. The properties and the hierarchical structure of information and knowledge in an intranet portal OMIS was identified as a problem for navigation tools of an intranet portal interface. The problem relates to navigation and retrieval functions of intranet portal OMIS and is expected to adversely affect user performance, satisfaction, and usefulness. To solve the problem, a conceptual model for navigation tools of an intranet portal interface was proposed and an experiment using a crossover design was conducted with 10 participants. In the experiment, a separate access method (tabbed tree tool) was compared to an unified access method (single tree tool). The results indicate that each information/knowledge repository for which a user has a different structural knowledge should be handled separately with a separate access to increase user satisfaction and the usefulness of the OMIS and to improve user performance in navigation.

Design and implementation of a semantic image classification and retrieval of organizational memory information systems using analytical hierarchy process

With the fast growth of image database, managing image contents is becoming an increasingly important part of the development of organizational memory information systems. However, effective and precise image retrieval still remains a problem because of the extreme difficulty in image understanding, and high-level knowledge required. In this paper, a new semantic image retrieval method using the analytic hierarchical process is proposed, to provide a new way to incorporate experts' judgment into the system and to evaluate the fitness of a semantic description used to represent an image. The main aim of the proposed method is to facilitate mapping the perceptions of low-level features of the knowledge users to higher-level organizational knowledge. A prototype of this system is implemented and experimental results show that the performance of the proposed method is excellent when compared to traditional techniques. The implications, limitations, and future works of the proposed method for the development of organizational memory information systems are discussed.

Organizational memory information systems: a transactive memory approach

Effective management of organizational memory (OM) is critical to collaboration and knowledge sharing in organizations. We present a framework for managing organizational memory based on transactive memory, a mechanism of collective memory in small groups. While being effective in small groups, there are difficulties hindering the extension of transactive memory to larger groups. We claim that information technology can be used to help overcome these difficulties. We present a formal architecture for directories of meta-memories required in extended transactive memory systems and propose the use of meta-knowledge to substitute for the lack of tacit group knowledge that exists in small groups.

Manufacturing Organizational Memory: Logged Conversation Thread Analysis

Introduction Logged conversation must be conceived of as an OM (Organizational Memory) manufacturing process acquired during active discussions among conversation participants and logged into a hierarchy of text-format data. A mailing list provides a collection of informative correspondences, and its use as a source of organizational knowledge in business is widespread and obvious. To make this use easier, however, good search tools are required. The plethora of current and widespread search technologies can be classified into four categories: (1) Context-extended search using a thesaurus. In this approach, the query term is expanded in context utilizing words/clauses/phrases from a thesaurus to broaden the catchment space. (2) Query-by-example. Here, the user selects relevant document snippets, which are then used for the query base. (3) Keyword Search on full/partial text contents. 4) List Scan, by which the user sorts by date, author, and subject by listing within the structured list (See Figure 1). [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Experimental Setting and Results Corpus Selection From the collection of 20 mailing lists gathered for this study, we found on analysis that they consist of three primary types: 1. In strongly-typed mailing lists, each reply or thread-initiating message can only start after the completion of a input. A typical example of this of mailing list is Organizational Memory Information Systems (OMIS), which force users to input a into the system, often presenting an unnecessary barrier. Such category type information can significantly enhance later OMIS search usability and effectiveness, but our observation has been that the threads do not extend to more than 10 messages. Here, we suspect the negative effect of the entry barrier outweighs usability, and we cannot argue that this of mailing list is good for our classification (Mark & Bordetsky, 1998). 2. A typical locating system allows each member to register and modify the index list pertaining to his or her specialized knowledge or experiences so that later users can locate subject matter experts by a simple keyword query. Each consultant will be registered, and the collected profiles form a thread in the mailing list. Users can add comments and feedback, rating the services received. Such registration data also constitutes a mailing list. It is rare here, as in (1), to see sufficiently long threads. Another drawback is that OM manufacturing does not happen in the locating system per se. Usually, the OM is created while messages are exchanged in a weakly typed message swap (Fisher, 2002). For these reasons, it is inadvisable to choose the locating system for analysis and classification. 3. The plain-vanilla free format or weakly-type-forced mailing lists is often used for hobby and special interest groups. In enterprise, employees form intra-net mailing list to assist OM creation and utilization (Hood, 2003). The mailing list we selected for analysis was borrowed from the amateur radio kit building community (Elecraft, 2003), where OM processes are actively performed and databases frequently accessed. Our list displays distinctive aspects arising from the nature of this community: 1. The list has been used since 1998 and the total number of messages per month increased constantly from the start. 2. The January 2003 list consists of 1406 messages by 311 members. As shown in Figure 2, 156 authors (50%) account for 86% of the messages, forming the list's active core. Fortyseven authors (15%) account for 54% of the messages. 3. Visitors and infrequent guests welcomed by expert advisers constitute 63% of the posters, posting only once or twice in the course of a typical month. Because of these well-behaved community aspects, OM created in the above list qualified as a relevant analysis corpus for our classification. …

The Knowledge Café–A Knowledge Management System and Its Application to Hospitality and Tourism

SUMMARY Knowledge management is identified as a key success factor in most industries today. While data or information can be stored independently from people, knowledge is bound to people who use it for their interactions. The main goal of knowledge management is to improve the usage of knowledge in the enterprise. Knowledge management systems are not only organizational memory information systems. They also contain organizational standard procedures and a certain cultural attitude. A reference framework gives implementation hints mainly influenced by technical possibilities. The knowledge management system reference architecture contains layers of sources, repositories, taxonomy, services, applications and user interfaces. A software tool that largely corresponds to this reference framework is the Knowledge Café. Possible applications of this tool to the area of hospitality and tourism are described in this paper.

A metadata filter for intranet portal organizational memory information systems

An intranet portal is proposed as an information infrastructure to support organizational learning. Specifically, an agent-like metadata filter for easy information/knowledge retrieval in the intranet portal is suggested and tested. The metadata filter preserves the context of digital objects and presents an uncluttered window by controlling the metadata elements. An experiment using 20 participants examined whether the metadata filter reduces search and retrieval performance time (the dependent variable). The main results indicate that the metadata filter significantly (36%) improved user's performance in identifying information. The results of the study suggest that the proposed metadata filer may be an effective interface tool to improve users' performances in identifying information in an intranet portal organizational memory information system.

Development and validation of user-adaptive navigation and information retrieval tools for an intranet portal organizational memory information system

Based on previous research and properties of organizational memory, a conceptual model for navigation and retrieval functions in an Intranet portal organizational memory information system was proposed, and two human-centred features (memory structure map and history-based tool) were developed to support user's navigation and retrieval in a well-known organizational memory. To test two hypotheses concerning the validity of the conceptual model and two human-centred features, an experiment was conducted with 30 subjects. Testing of the two hypotheses indicated the following: (1) the memory structure map's users showed 29% better performance in navigation, and (2) the history-based tool's users outperformed by 34% in identifying information. The results of the study suggest that a conceptual model and two human-centred features could be used in an user-adaptive interface design to improve user's performance in an intranet portal organizational memory information system.

A Framework for Improving Organizational Learning Through a User-Adaptive Intranet Portal Organizational Memory Information System

The article discusses an organizational memory information system (OMIS) framework. An OMIS provides support for an organization's ability to acquire and retain information regarding its processes. The article first reviews knowledge management systems, organizational learning, the Intranet, and reviews new technology, extended from the Intranet, from an OMIS perspective. To improve connectivity between an OMIS and its users, an OMIS framework is developed that includes cognitive aspects of the user. Next, the article proposes an Intranet portal OMIS framework. The Intranet portal OMIS framework is derived from the OMIS framework but includes knowledge structure properties from the Intranet portal. Finally, the article addresses the navigation and retrieval function in an Intranet portal OMIS. A conceptual model for a human-centered framework is suggested for improving usability and efficiency in an Intranet portal OMIS. Based on this conceptual model, several human-centered features are suggested, and their contributions in information seeking and retrieval in an Intranet portal are explained.

Development Scenarios for Organizational Memory Information Systems

:Well-managed organizational memories have been emphasized in the recent management literature as important sources for business success. Organizational memory information systems (OMIS) have been conceptualized as a framework for information technologies to support these organizational memories. OMIS development may include several projects and may take many years. This paper classifies and analyzes OMIS development scenarios to provide guidance and support for OMIS development. This includes the definition of the roles of participants, a work schedule, and a definition of deliverables and deadlines. The mostly evolutionary nature of OMIS development requires that the results of these steps be monitored and adjusted when needed. Furthermore, a contingency framework and eight rules have been hypothesized, partially based on ex-post analysis of three cases (Veronica Broadcasting, Andersen Consulting, and Nationale-Nederlanden General Insurances). The paper provides concepts and a framework that may be an aid to research on refining the rules for analysis and design of OMIS.

A Framework for a Dynamic Organizational Memory Information System

Organizational memory information systems (OMIS) implement important aspects of organizational memory with the aim of enhancing organizational effectiveness. We propose a 3-layered framework for a dynamic OMIS. The framework consists of a pragmatic layer to support the actual activity, a conceptual layer to store the concepts inherent in that activity, and a process layer to store the experience of performing that activity. Both the conceptual and process layers represent organizational memory repositories in the form of respective models. The implementation of OMIS assumes that any activity is the instantiation of relevant conceptual and process models and includes the reuse of knowledge stored in association with those models. In this way, organizational memory is always mapped to current activity, and its adequacy is constantly evaluated. This provides the potential for the models to evolve as a direct result of the current activity. A partial implementation of this framework to support epidemiological research is illustrated.

Dual Information Systems: Supporting Organizational Working and Learning by Making Organizational Memory Transparent

The conceptual design of most computer-based information systems reflects a dualism of technology. During the development phase, part of the work-domain-related knowledge is formalized and encoded in the software, making it difficult for users to reflect on and use this knowledge. This design--use dualism contributes to the deterioration of the interpretive flexibility of information systems. In this article, we outline an information systems architecture called Dual Information Systems (DIS) that incorporates the concepts of an organizational memory information system (OMIS) in a broader framework. DIS help bridge the design--use dualism by providing organizations with a set of services that enable and reinforce both effective, institutionalized working and the questioning and (re)construction of computer-supported work routines. DIS have a 4-layered conceptual structure: (a) people draw on the business layer to work and learn; (b) people use the breakdown layer to handle unexpected break-downs; (c) self-organizing project teams use the project layer to create innovative work and information system (re)designs; and (d) the knowledge sharing server acts as an OMIS by storing these redesigns and making them organizationally available to facilitate working and learning as well as subsequent redesign efforts. We outline the theoretical background, conceptual structure, and generic services of DIS. We elaborate on the services and the conceptual design of the business and breakdown layers of DIS. The services help people work effectively and develop competence needed to handle breakdowns and participate in the redesign project teams. The conceptual design extends the hyperknowledge framework of Chang et al [1]. Finally, we demonstrate the conceptual design and services in a financial services organization with the help of the ReDIS prototype.

The Knowledge Repository: Organizational Memory Information Systems

An organizational memory information system (OMIS) is a tangible conceptualization of the nebulous concept of knowledge. It combines the attributes of culture, history, business process, human memory, and fact into an integrated business system. Such an integrated system can facilitate a major step in the capture of the knowledge assets.

Organizational Memory Information Systems

Organizational memory information systems have recently received considerable attention in information systems development. As yet little research has been reported on the methodology used for the analysis and design of organizational memory information systems. This paper describes an object-oriented method for modeling organizationalmemory information systems. Six concepts that support organizational memory information systems are discussed. They are: document, episode, cognizance, goal, mnemonic instrument, and integration. These concepts are harmonized into a unified object-oriented paradigm. The proposed modeling method extends the traditional information systems analysis into the context of organizational memory information systems. It is usefulforthe development of organizational memory information systems for organizational learning, surveillance, and decision making in general.

Knowledge acquisition for organizational memory information systems in decision support

ABSTRACT In decision-making, a record of past decisions can prompt the decision—maker with relevant past experiences of the organization resulting in greater consistency in decisions. Organizational memory information systems (OMIS) are designed to store, maintain and retrieve knowledge about past decisions. In domains where consistency is important, there is potential benefit in using an OMIS for decision support purposes. This paper explores the usefulness of a case—based approach to OMIS for decision support. In such an approach, significant past decision situations are represented as cases that generalize the experience of past decisions. An OMIS architecture with a case—based component is proposed which can assist in decision—making by recalling past decisions, and allows similar cases to be adapted to novel decision scenarios. Building case—based OMIS involves collecting past decision situations from a decision-maker. This is analogous to knowledge acquisition where an expert's knowledge is elicited and modeled. This paper proposes a method of collecting past significant cases and of building a case base component for an OMIS. The method combines a number of techniques and is illustrated by a real—world application.