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People Tagging for Organizational Development

Knowing-who is an essential element for efficient knowledge maturing processes, e.g. for finding the right person to talk to. Many approaches like self-descriptions in employee yellow pages, or top-down competence management approaches have largely failed to live up to their promises. Often because information contained in the directories becomes outdated quickly; or is not described in a manner relevant to potential users.

The approach: Collaborative People Tagging

In MATURE, we are using a lightweight approach based on collaborative tagging as a principle to gather the information about persons inside and outside the company (if and where relevant): individuals tag each other according to the topics they associate with this person. We call this ‘people tagging’. In this way, we gain a collective review of existing skills and competencies. Knowledge can be shared and awareness strengthened within the organisational context around who knows what. This tagging information can then be used to search for persons to talk to in a particular situation. Moreover it can also be used for various other purposes. For instance, human resource development needs to have sufficient information about the needs and current capabilities of their workforce.

Foundation: Collaborative construction of a shared understanding

This needs continuous development of a shared vocabulary (ontology). Competencies usually have an integrating function in the enterprise, bringing together strategic and operational levels, and human resources, and performance management aspects.so that these notions have to be shared by the whole organization (in the ideal case): in consequence we cannot do this without a shared vocabulary – a shared vocabulary which the employees evolve in its usage, i.e. during the tagging or search process.

With our tools, the employees can tag each other with concepts from the shared vocabulary. In the case they want to tag with a topic the existing ontology concepts do not cover (e.g. because the topic is too new or specific), the employees can adapt an existing concept or just use a new term, without an agreed meaning. These new terms are automatically added to the shared vocabulary as “prototypical concepts”, reflecting the fact that it’s not clear yet how they relate to the existing concepts. The users can then remove the new terms from the “prototypical concepts” container and integrate them into the vocabulary and add additional information. The vocabulary information is also used as background knowledge to support the search process. That means the users can improve the retrieval by adding and refining vocabulary information. For instance, if the users miss entries in the search results because of missing links between
concepts (e.g. entries with ‘Glasgow’ or ‘Edinburgh’ when searching for ‘Scotland’), they can easily add them. In this way, we can achieve a collaborative and incremental in-situ revision and improvement. Realtime collaborative gardening tools are provided to promote the convergence towards a shared vocabulary

MATURE explores the relationship of organizational culture and other specifics, e.g. tag/tagger visibility, degree of control for tags, reconcilability with works council etc., as well as the potential of analyzing the tagging dynamics for informing HR development strategies, e.g. identification of crucial new topics and developments.

Facts

Features

Bookmarklet-based tagging widget with tag suggestions based on the existing shared vocabulary and the content of the person‘s web page
Can be used on top of existing intranet employee directories or social networking sites
Lightweight, browser-based, and real-time collaborative ontology editor for competencies based on the SKOS formalism (synonyms, multilinguality, typos, broader, narrower, and related terms)
Recommendations for gardening the shared vocabulary
Semantic search for people, taking into account synonyms, broader and narrower terms, but also
tag frequency, competencies of the taggee and several other heuristics
Display of aggregated people profiles

Technology

The people tagging tool is based on SOBOLEO (http://www.soboleo.com), a web-based application realized with the Google Web Toolkit. The data representation is based on SKOS in a RDF repository. It is open for integration through its Web Service interfaces (both SOAP and REST are supported).

Presentations

People Tagging & Ontology Maturing: TowardsCollaborative Competence Management

View more presentations from Andreas Schmidt.

The People Tagging Approach to Competence Management

View more presentations from Andreas Schmidt.

Flyer

A flyer describing the people tagging demonstrator is available here.

Publications

2010

Braun, Simone, Zacharias, Valentin
SOBOLEO – Editor and Repository for Living Ontologies
In: d'Aquin, Mathieu and Castro, Alexander García and Lange, Christoph and Viljanen, Kim (eds.): Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Ontology Repository and Editors for the Semantic Work (ORES 2010) at the Extended Semantic Web Conference (ESWC 2010), 2010

BibTeX

Abstract SOBOLEO is a web based system that enables groups of people to collaboratively develop and use SKOS ontologies and semantically organized information spaces. SOBOLEO supports the development and refinement of living ontologies – i.e. ontologies that are never finished and that are used and developed at the same time. It offers tools to edit the SKOS ontology used and the information space. It also offers interfaces for remote applications to be notified of changes and to change the ontology itself.

Braun, Simone, Kunzmann, Christine, Schmidt, Andreas
People Tagging & Ontology Maturing: Towards Collaborative Competence Management
In: Randall, David and Salembier, Pascal (eds.): From CSCW to Web2.0: European Developments in Collaborative Design Selected Papers from COOP08, Computer Supported Cooperative Work vol. , Springer, 2010

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BibTeX

Abstract Competence Management approaches suggest promising instruments for more effective resource allocation, knowledge management, learning support, and human resource development in general. However, especially on the level of individual employees, such approaches have so far not been able to show sustain-able success on a larger scale. Piloting applications like expert finders have often failed in the long run because of incomplete and outdated data, apart from social and organizational barriers. To overcome these problems, we propose a collabora-tive competence management approach. In this approach, we combine Web 2.0-style bottom-up processes with organizational top-down processes. We addressed this problem as a collaborative ontology construction problem of which the con-ceptual foundation is the Ontology Maturing Process Model. In order to realize the Ontology Maturing Process Model for competence management, we have built the AJAX-based semantic social bookmarking application SOBOLEO that offers task-embedded competence ontology development and an easy-to-use interface. Following evolutionary prototyping within the design-based research methodology we conducted two field experiments in parallel with the system development in order to test the approach of people tagging in general and to explore motivational and social aspects in particular.

2009

Braun, Simone, Schora, Claudiu, Zacharias, Valentin
Semantics to the Bookmarks: A Review of Social Semantic Bookmarking Systems
In: Paschke, Adrian and Weigand, Hans and Behrendt, Wernher and Tochtermann, Klaus and Pellegrini, Tassilo (eds.): 5th International Conference on Semantic Systems (I-SEMANTICS 2009), Proceedings of I-KNOW 09 and I-SEMANTICS 09, Verlag der Technischen Universitt Graz, 2009, pp. 445-454

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BibTeX

Abstract In this paper we present a review of systems that follow the novel paradigm of Social Semantic Bookmarking. Social semantic bookmarking allows for the annotation of resources with tags extended by semantic definitions and descriptions that also evolve (collaboratively) within the same system. We analyzed nine different systems that extend social bookmarking in the direction of more semantics; i.e. that enable their users to add semantics to the folksonomy. We studied the systems regarding the realization of the social semantic bookmarking paradigm, the features offered to the users to add semantics, what kind of semantics can be added, and how the system makes use of the semantics. We will present commonalities, main differences and distinctive features, and future trends.

Braun, Simone, Schmidt, Andreas, Zacharias, Valentin
Mit Social Semantic Bookmarking zur nützlichen Ontologie
i-com - Zeitschrift für interaktive und kooperative Medien, vol. 8, no. , 2009, pp.

BibTeX

Abstract Dieser Artikel präsentiert das SOBOLEO-System und das zugrundeliegende Ontologiereifungsprozessmodell für die kollaborative Ontologieentwicklung. Man kann beobachten, dass die meisten aktuellen Ontologieentwicklungsprozesse und -werkzeuge von einer organisatorischen, personellen, technischen und zeitlichen Trennung zwischen Entwicklung und Nutzung der Ontologie ausgehen – eine Trennung, die wiederum häufig zu kostspieligen und nicht an ihre Nutzung angepasste Ontologien führt. Unser Ansatz überwindet durch diese Trennung verursachten Schwierigkeiten mittels Methoden und Werkzeuge, die die Nutzer der Ontologie in die Lage versetzen, diese selbst zu entwickeln, und zwar im gleichen System, das die Ontologie nutzt und zu dem Zeitpunkt und Umfang wie jeweils nötig (arbeitsintegriert).

Braun, Simone, Schora, Claudiu, Zacharias, Valentin
Semantics to the Bookmarks: A Review of Social Semantic Bookmarking Systems
In: International Conference on Semantic Systems (I-SEMANTICS 2009), Graz, Austria, 2009, pp. 445-454

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BibTeX

2008

Braun, Simone, Schmidt, Andreas, Graf, Ulrich
Partizipative Entwicklung von Kompetenzontologien
In: Workshop Nutzerinteraktion im Social Semantic Web, Mensch & Computer - 8. Fachuebergreifende Konferenz - M&C 2008 (Sept. 8-9, 2008, Lübeck, Germany), 2008

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BibTeX

Abstract Ontologiebasierte Ansätze haben sich im Bereich des Kompetenzmanagments, z.B. für die Zusammenstellung von Teams, als vielversprechend herausgestellt. Mit dem Modell des Ontologiereifungsprozesses präsentieren wir einen partizipativen Ansatz für die Entwicklung von Kompetenzontologien, der alle Mitarbeiter in einer Organisation miteinbindet. Dadurch können übliche Probleme in der Erstellung und Pflege der Kompetenzontologie, wie fehlende Aktualität oder unterschiedliche Granularität, aber auch der individuellen Kompetenzprofile überwunden werden. Zur Unterstützung des Ontologiereifungsprozesses für das Kompetenzmanagment wurde die AJAX-basierte semantische Social-Bookmarking-Anwendung SOBOLEO entwickelt, welche die aufgaben-integrierte Entwicklung von Kompetenzontologien zusammen mit einem einfach zu nutzenden Interface bietet.

Braun, Simone, Schmidt, Andreas
People Tagging & Ontology Maturing: Towards Collaborative Competence Management
In: 8th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems (COOP '08), Carry-le-Rouet, France, May 20-23, 2008, 2008

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BibTeX

Abstract Competence Management approaches, aiming at making transparent individual competencies and their relationship to organizational goals, suggest promising instruments for more effective resource allocation, knowledge management, learning support, and human resource development in general. However, especially on the level of individual employees, such approaches have so far not been able to show sustainable success on a larger scale. Piloting applications like expert finders have often failed in the long run because of incomplete and outdated data, apart from social and organizational barriers. This affects both competency profiles of the individual employee and non-adequate and often also outdated competency catalogs used as a vocabulary for the profiles. To overcome these problems, we propose a collaborative competence management approach. In this approach, we combine Web 2.0-style bottom-up processes with organizational top-down processes: Web 2.0 oriented bottom-up processes allow every employee to participate and contribute with low usage barriers; i.e. by tagging colleagues; the organizational processes take up and guide these bottom-up developments towards organizational goals. Key idea is that we cannot do competence management completely without an agreed vocabulary (or ontology), i.e. the competency catalog, but we have to make the process of evolving this catalog more collaborative and embedded into its actual usage (e.g., while tagging other employees). Likewise, we do not conceive competency profiles as self-descriptions, but rather as results of collective judgments of others. We approached this problem as a collaborative ontology construction problem of which the conceptual foundation is the Ontology Maturing Process Model. In order to realize the Ontology Maturing Process Model for competence management, we have built the AJAX-based semantic social bookmarking application SOBOLEO that offers task-embedded competence ontology development and an easy-to-use interface.

Promoting a shared understanding of competencies - position statement at IEEE LTSC WG20 meeting in Stuttgart

Submitted by Andreas.Schmidt on September 28, 2009 - 22:26

Andreas Schmidt represented MATURE and its approach to competency definitions at the informal IEEE LTSC WG20 meeting. Its goal was to establish a - standardization body independent - group that develops a shared understanding of competency data management. A position statement was presented and lively discussed: