Open Source tools for Knowledge Management Carlos Méndez.

Open Source tools for Knowledge ManagementCarlos Méndez

DOWNLOADS

• Powerpoint– http://192.168.2.144/winterschool.ppt

• Federated Search Example– http://192.168.2.144/winterschool.jar

Knowledge Management

• Knowledge Management (KM) refers to a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness and learning across the organisation.

• Knowledge Management programs are typically tied to organisational objectives and are intended to lead to the achievement of specific outcomes such as shared intelligence, improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of innovation.

Explicit Knowledge

• Explicit knowledge is knowledge that has been or can be articulated, codified, and stored in certain media. The most common forms of explicit knowledge are manuals, documents, procedures, and stories. Knowledge also can be audio-visual. Works of art and product design can be seen as other forms of explicit knowledge where human skills, motives and knowledge are externalized

Implicit Knowledge• The knowledge that people carry in their heads.

Compared with explicit knowledge, implicit knowledge is more difficult to articulate or write down and so it tends to be shared between people through discussion, stories and personal interactions. It includes skills, experiences, insight, intuition and judgement.

• There are authors that make a difference between Implicit Knowledge (a knowledge that through indirect mechanisms should be made explicit) and Tacit Knowledge (the one that resides in the head of the humans and that cannot be made explicit in anyway).

• Example of Tacit Knowledge. A expertise in a machine is able to locate a problem faster that a junior one even if they use the same procedures (if they have at their disposal the same explicit knowledge)

Knowledge Management Tools

• There are commercial tools that are announced as Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) but they don’t cover all the aspects of KM specially regarding implicit knowledge.

• The objective of this session is to explain the alternatives/extensions to this commercial tools using Open Source that combined can create a powerful taylor-made KMS

Knowledge Management

Explicit Implicit

Tacit

CMS

Repositories

File Servers

Collaborative tools· Wiki· Forums· Collaborative Editors

Bookmarking

Blogs

Sea

rch

ers

Communication ToolseMailChat

MessengerAudioconferenceVideoconference

Best PracticesVirtual

CommunitiesSocial Networks

Competence Management

Knowledge Map

Ontologies

Taxonomies

Folksonomies

P2P Networks

Recommendation

Support System

Rating

Voting

Tagging

Integration Methods

• Web Services

• Syndication Systems (RSS/Atom)

• Metadata Exchange Protocols

• Plug-ins

• HTTP Posting

• Coding, coding, coding... (standard or proprietary Languages)

Knowledge Management

Explicit

CMS

Repositories

File Servers

Collaborative tools· Wiki· Forums· Collaborative Editors

Bookmarking

Blogs

Sea

rch

ers

P2P Networks

Explicit Knowledge (Social Bookmarking)

• del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us); NO OPENSOURE– A non-hierarchical keyword categorization system (users can tag

their bookmarks with a number of freely chosen keywords creating folksonomies).

– Integration: • Syndication (ex: "http://del.icio.us/tag/wiki" returns all of the most recent

links tagged "wiki“ in RSS format).• Open Source API implementations available in several languages (Java,

Phyton, PHP...)• Open source plugins to access by browsers or desktop applications

• del.irio.us (http://de.lirio.us)– An open source social bookmarking clone of del.icio.us. Now part of

Simpy, a popular, and long-running, social bookmarking website.

– DEMO: LIST of Bookmarks for Tencompetence: http://de.lirio.us/tags/TenCompetence (Login ws; Password ws)

Explicit Knowledge (CMS) 1/2

• A CMS (Content Management System) facilitates the organization, control, and publication of a large body of documents and other content, such as images and multimedia resources.

• Integration: RSS/Atom in most cases• Open Source CMS:

– Drupal http://drupal.org/– Demo

http://demo.opensourcecms.com/e107/e107_admin/admin.php

– User: admin; Password: demo

Explicit Knowledge (CMS) 2/2

• Alfresco (http://dev.alfresco.com): an Open Source ECM (Enterprise Content Management). It uses Java: Spring, Hibernate, Lucene and JSF

• Knowledgetree (http://www.ktdms.com/): a powerful document management system made in Java and PHP

• Exponent http://www.exponentcms.org/• Typo3 http://typo3.com • Joomla http://www.joomla.org/• Nucleus http://www.nucleuscms.org/ • List of CMS

http://www.opensourcescripts.com/dir/Content_management_,040CMS,041/

Explicit Knowledge (Blogs)

• A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.

• WordPress http://wordpress.org/: – Written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database:– Feeded by eMail, RSS, etc.– Access through: RSS/Atom

• bBlog http://www.bblog.com/ – Supports ATOM 0.3 and RSS 2.0 Syndication formats – Display RSS feeds on your blog

• Generates standards-compliant XML, XHTML, and CSS • Integrated link management • Search engine-friendly permalink structure • Extensible plugin support • Nested categories and multiple categories for articles • TrackBack and Pingback • Typographic filters for proper formatting and styling of text•Smarty based templates and plugins

•Threaded comments for enhanced discussion •Threaded Trackback support •Advanced typographic filters enable display of properly formatted and styled text. •Integrated blogroll •Advanced search

Explicit Knowledge (Collaborative Tools) 1/3

• Wikis: a website that allows visitors to easily add, remove, edit and change available content, and typically without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring. – MediaWiki (http://www.mediawiki.org/)

http://www.mediawiki.org/ • Wikipedia http://wikipedia.org/ • WikiQuote http://wikiquote.org/ • WikiBooks http://wikibooks.org/

– List of Wiki Engines http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngines

Explicit Knowledge (Collaborative Tools) 2/3

• Forum: a facility for holding discussions and posting user generated content. A forum is essentially a website composed of a number of member-written threads that entails a discussion or conversation in the form of a series of member-written posts.

• PHBB http://www.phpbb.com/ – A popular internet forum package written in the PHP

programming language. • Comparison of Internet Forum Storage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software

Explicit Knowledge (Collaborative Tools) 3/3

• Collaborative Real-Time Editors: a software application that allows several people to edit a computer file using different computers: – Google Docs (Not OpenSource)

http://docs.google.com/ – Gobby http://darcs.0x539.de/trac/obby/cgi-bin/trac.cgi – OpenEffort http://www.openeffort.com/ – List of Real Time Editors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_real-time_editor

Explicit Knowledge (Repositories)

• A repository is a central place where data is stored and maintained by an organisation

• Access to information is possible though several mechanisms as:– Metadata Exchange Protocols (OAI, Z93.50)– Query Languages (SQI)– Web Services– Syndication (RSS/Atom)

Explicit Knowledge (Federated Search) 1/3

• Several Repostories can be linked together in a federation making possible to launch searches in all of them (federated searches)

• In a federation the repositories must follow certain specifications regarding query language, results format, session management, etc.

Explicit Knowledge (Federated Search) 2/3GUI

Federated Search

Keywords

SQI Implementation for Youtube

SQI Implementation for Flickr

Youtube Flickr

restxml

vsql

lom lom

vsql

EXAMPLE OF FEDERATED SEARCH

• Federated search of images and videos in Flickr and YouTube using vSQL (users queries), SQI (repositories query), LOM (result format)

• SQI: Simple Query Interface adopted by ARIADNE among others with the final aim of extending its repositories to create a global Learning Network of learning object repositories:

– SILO implements the ARIADNE’s federated searchhttp://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/silo2006/NewFederatedQuery.do

– SQI Repositories http://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/SqiInterop/free/SQIImplementationsRegistry.jsp

Explicit Knowledge (Federated Search) 3/3

Explicit Knowledge (Searchers)

– Open source search engines• DataparkSearch • Egothor • Gonzui • Ht://dig • Lucene • mnoGoSearch • Namazu • Nutch • OpenFTS • Swish-e • Wikiasari • Xapian • YaCy • Zettair

Explicit Knowledge (P2P Networks) 1/2

• A Peer-To-Peer computer network relies primarily on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively low number of servers.

• P2P networks are typically used for connecting nodes via largely ad hoc connections. Such networks are commonly used for sharing contents but can be also used for transmit realtime data, such as telephony traffic

Explicit Knowledge (P2P Networks) 2/2Network or

ProtocolApplications

BitTorrentAllPeers, ABC [Yet Another BitTorrent Client], Azureus, BitComet, BitSpirit, BitTornado, BitLord, BitTorrent, BitTorrent.Net, Burst!, G3 Torrent, KTorrent, Limewire, mlMac, MLDonkey, QTorrent, Shareaza, Transmission, Tribler, µTorrent, Opera

eDonkeyaMule, eDonkey2000 (discontinued), eMule, eMule Plus, Hydranode, Jubster, lMule, Lphant, MLDonkey, mlMac, Morpheus, Pruna, Shareaza, xMule, iMesh

GNUnet GNUnet, (GNUnet-gtk)

GnutellaAcquisition, BearShare, Cabos, Gnucleus, Grokster, iMesh, gtk-gnutella, Kiwi Alpha, LimeWire, FrostWire, MLDonkey, mlMac, Morpheus, Phex, Poisoned, Swapper, Shareaza, XoloX

Gnutella2 Adagio, Caribou, Gnucleus, iMesh, Kiwi Alpha, MLDonkey, mlMac, Morpheus, Shareaza, TrustyFiles

Kad Network aMule, eMule, MLDonkey

Knowledge Management

Implicit

Best PracticesVirtual

CommunitiesSocial Networks

Competence Management

Knowledge Map

Ontologies

Taxonomies

Folksonomies

Recommendation

Support System

Rating

Voting

Tagging

Implicit Knowledge (Virtual Communities)

• Virtual communities form "when people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships"

• A virtual community or online community can be used loosely for a variety of social groups interacting via the Internet. It does not necessarily mean that there is a strong bond among the members

• It is supported by a variety set of communication tools as forums, chats or CMS

• Interactions within the communities allows organisations to make explicit some implicit knowledge as:– Discover experts as the people that becames a reference in the

community– Qualify contents through Rating/Voting processes– Define Ontologies through the tagging of contents by the members of

the community (folksonomies)

Implicit Knowledge (Tagging/Voting)• Digg http://www.digg.com is a community-based popularity website with an

emphasis on technology and science articles. It combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control. News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system. This differs from the hierarchical editorial system that many other news sites employ.

• Meneame http://meneame.net – Open Source Clone of Digg

http://svn.meneame.net/index.cgi/branches/version2/ – DEMO: http://meneame.net/?category=1

Implicit Knowledge (Social Networks)

A social network is a social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations. It indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds.

Social Networks make explicit the implicit relations among the people.

Implicit Knowledge (Social Networks)

Name Description/Focus User count Registration

Flickr Photo sharing 4,000,000 Open

Last.fm Music Unknown Open

MySpace General 130,000,000 Open

TagWorld General (tagging) 1,850,692 Open

WAYN Travel & Lifestyle 7,000,000 Open to people 18 and older

Windows Live SpacesBlogging (formerly MSN

Spaces)30,000,000 Open - Uses Windows Live ID

Xanga Blogs and "metro" areas 40,000,000 Open

Yahoo! 360° Linked to Yahoo! IDs 4,700,000 Open to people 18 and older

List of social networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Implicit Knowledge (Knowledge Map)

• Taxonomy: the practice and science of classification. • Folksonomy: An Internet-based information retrieval methodology

consisting of collaboratively generated, open-ended labels that categorize content such as Web pages, online photographs, and Web links. A folksonomy is most notably contrasted from a taxonomy in that the authors of the labeling system are often the main users (and sometimes originators) of the content to which the labels are applied. The labels are commonly known as tags and the labeling process is called tagging.

• Ontology: It seeks to describe or posit the basic categories and relationships of being or existence to define entities and types of entities within its framework.

• KNOWLEDGE MAP: Taxonomy where the knowledge of a certain community are clasiffied .

Implicit Knowledge (LSA/LSI)

• LSA is an algorithm that makes automatic the process of creating ontologies from specific contents to, for example, allow them to be classified in a taxonomy (or in the knowledge map of an organisation).

• Latent Semantic Analysis http://lsa.colorado.edu/ : LSA uses a term-document matrix which describes the occurrences of terms in documents. Your original matrix gives the relationship between terms and documents. Latent semantic analysis transforms this into a relationship between the terms and concepts, and a relation between the documents and the same concepts. The terms and documents are now indirectly related through the concepts.

• The Semantic Indexing Project http://knowledgesearch.org/ – Open source program for latent semantic indexing

Implicit Knowledge (Best Practices)

• Best Practice is a management idea which asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a project can be rolled out and completed with fewer problems and unforeseen complications.

Knowledge Management

Communication ToolseMailChat

Instant MessagingAudioconferenceVideoconference

...

COMMUNICATION TOOLS• Asynchronous

– eMail– Annotation (Warichu) http://www.warichu.com/

• Warichu (formerly diginote.info) is a communication tool that sits on top of the web and allows everyone to discuss the webs content.

• Open API• Extensions for IE and Firefox

• Synchronous– Instant Messaging

• Jabber (XMPP) Jabber is an open system primarily built to provide instant messaging service and presence information (aka buddy lists). The protocol is built to be extensible and other features such as Voice over IP and file transfers have been added.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messaging_clients – AudioConference

• Asterisk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterisk_PBX • OpenWengo http://dev.openwengo.com/trac/openwengo/trac.cgi/

– Chat• IRC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_Relay_Chat_clients

– VideoConference• Egika/GnomeMeeting http://www.ekiga.org/

Knowledge Management Suites

• Egroupware www.egroupware.org – Demo for Winter School

http://192.168.2.144/egroupware – User: ws; Password: ws;

• Moodle www.moodle.org

eGroupware

• eGroupWare (www.egroupware.org) is a free enterprise ready groupware software for your network. It enables you to manage contacts, appointments, todos and many more for your whole business. eGroupWare is a groupware server. It comes with a native web-interface which allowes to access your data from any platform all over the planet. Moreover you also have the choice to access the eGroupWare server with your favorite groupware client (Kontact, Evolution, Outlook) and also with your mobile or PDA via SyncML. eGroupWare is international. At the time, it supports more than 25 languages including rtl support. eGroupWare is platform independent. The server runs on Linux, Mac, Windows and many more other operating systems. On the client side, all you need is a internetbrowser such as Firefox, Konqueror, Internet Explorer and many more.

– http://demo.egroupware.org/currentversion/login.php

MOODLE

Moodle (www.moodle.org) is a free software/open source e-learning platform (also known as a Course Management System (CMS) or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Moodle is designed to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction. Its open source license and modular design means that many people can develop additional functionality, and development is undertaken by a globally diffuse network of commercial and non-commercial users.

Open Source Tools for Knowledge Management