Beyond Boundary Objects: Collaborative Reuse in Aircraft Technical Support

Boundary objects are a critical, but understudied, theoretical construct in CSCW. Through a field study of aircraft technical support, we examined the role of boundary objects in the practical achievement of safety by service engineers. Their resolution of repair requests was preserved in the organization’s memory via three compound boundary objects. These crystallizations did not manifest a static interpretation, but instead were continually reinterpreted in light of meta-negotiations. This suggests design implications for organizational memory systems which can more fluidly represent the meta-negotiations surrounding boundary objects.     

Context-Aware, Proactive Delivery of Task-Specific Information: The KnowMore Project

From an IT point of view, a key objective of successful knowledge management is to provide relevant and necessary information at the right time to support humans in accomplishing their tasks. This paper presents a prototypical system which meets this objective in an enterprise environment. Based on context information associated with the enterprise's business processes, an integration of workflow engine and information assistant enables active presentation of relevant information to the user. We describe the functionality of the system and elaborate (i) on necessary extensions to the business process models, (ii) the ontologies used for information modeling, and (iii) the integration of workflow engine and active information assistant. The prototype system has been developed in the KnowMore project of the DFKI Knowledge Management Group.     

一种构建于DSM的移动对象的全时态索引方法

移动对象索引技术是移动对象数据库这个新兴的热点领域中的关键技术之一.针对该技术处理数据的繁琐复杂特性,提出构建于DSM的移动对象索引方法 DSM_MSMON,在分布式系统中并行的管理移动对象的信息,支持更新和查询操作.DSM_MSMON统一了单机和多机的内存管理策略,解决了DSM系统中的数据定位、一致性维护、负载平衡和可扩充性等主要问题,有效地提高了移动对象索引的效率.文中给出DSM_MSMON的设计思想和模型,并分析了DSM_MSMON的关键技术和程序流程.实验结果表明,该方法要优于MSMON结构.     

Organizational knowledge transfer through creation, mobilization and diffusion: a case analysis of InTouch within Schlumberger

Abstract.  There is a paucity of theory for the effective management of knowledge transfer within large organizations. Practitioners continue to rely upon 'experimental' approaches to address the problem. This research attempts to reduce the gap between theory and application, thereby improving conceptual clarity for the transfer of knowledge. The paper, through an in-depth case analysis conducted within Schlumberger, studies the adoption of an intranet-based knowledge management (KM) system (called InTouch ) to support, strategically align and transfer knowledge resources. The investigation was undertaken through the adoption of a robust empirically based qualitative research methodology incorporating the role of technology as an enabler of KM application. Consequently, the study addressed the important question of translating theoretical benefits of KM into practical reality. The research formulates a set of theoretical propositions that are seen as key to the development of an effective knowledge-based infrastructure. The findings identify 30 generic attributes that are essential to the creation, mobilization and diffusion of organizational knowledge. The research makes a significant contribution to identifying a theoretical and empirically based agenda for successful intranet-based KM, which will be of benefit to both the academic and practitioner communities. The paper also highlights and proposes important areas for further research.     

Boundary Negotiating Artifacts: Unbinding the Routine of Boundary Objects and Embracing Chaos in Collaborative Work

Empirical studies of material artifacts in practice continue to be a rich source of theoretical concepts for CSCW. This paper explores the foundational concept of boundary objects and questions the conception that all objects that move between communities of practice are boundary objects. This research presents the results of a year-long ethnographic study of collaborative work, specifically the multidisciplinary collaborative design of a museum exhibition. I suggest that artifacts can serve to establish and destabilize protocols themselves and that artifacts can be used to push boundaries rather than merely sailing across them. Artifacts used for collaboration do not necessarily exist within a web of standardized processes and disorderly processes should not be treated as “special cases”. An earlier draft of the work was published in the Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW 2005). Several pages longer, this work adds substantial clarification of the theoretical critique and also includes photographs of actual case study artifacts.     

Social Software in Academic Libraries for Internal Communication and Knowledge Management: A Comparison of Two Reference Blog Implementations

This article investigates the adoption of new innovations for internal reference desk communication and knowledge management in academic libraries, specifically the use of social software tools. Actual implementations of the free blog software Wordpress from two university libraries are described including charts detailing advantages and disadvantages of the methods. In the context of the diffusion of innovation and organizational lag theories, the analyzed outcomes confirm that while social software tools are being used, relatively few institutions have exploited them for improving in-house processes. Without clearly articulated long-term gains, adoption of administrative innovations will follow the pattern of organizational lag.     

A-PIE: An algorithm for preserving privacy,quality of information,and energy consumption in Participatory Sensing Systems

We present A-PIE, a hybrid privacy-preserving mechanism for Participatory Sensing Systems that provides a high level of privacy protection as well as a high quality of information while minimizing the energy consumption. A-PIE takes into consideration the variability of the variable of interest to identify clusters, and divides the target area in cells of different sizes. A-PIE applies anonymization or double-encryption to balance privacy protection, quality of information and energy consumption based on the cell’s size. Extensive experimentation, using a real air monitoring system, shows the superior performance of the proposed mechanism when compared with most important privacy-preserving mechanisms.