ECollaboration and Enterprise Content Management – IS 904 Master Course in Information Systems,...

eCollaboration and Enterprise Content Management – IS 904

Master Course in Information Systems,

Tero Päivärinta, prof., PhD, AdvisorUniversity of Agder

1.10.2010

Agenda

• Status of the group works

• ”Crowdsourcing” – discussion about possibility to crowdsource exam questions

• Organizational content metadata (incl. taxonomy, folksonomy) and ”meta-communication”

• (Mid-term evaluation issue)

• Other misc?

Status of the group works

• Going through the group work ideas– (Tero helps how to present in Live Meeting ”on-the-fly”)

• Discuss– need for protecting publicity of the group work wiki sites outside

the course?• Tero will promote all course participants to ”wiki organizators”

– What are the ”risks” in this approach etc?

– possibility for ”joint wiki resources” concerning group works?– agreeing on the ”culture” for

• peeking each others’ works?• ”stealing ideas” from each other – is it wrong/right – how to do it?• …or even… contributing to each others’ works??

– Why on earth someone might want to do that?

Crowdsourcing

• ”…the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call.”– peer production / individual approach– crucial prerequisite: open call format, large

network of potential ”laborers”

• cf. the cases in Brabham & Wikinomics

”Mini-crowdsourcing” the exam question…

• Discussion – can we ”crowdsource” an exam question?– no inputs yet – why?– what are the good sides of this idea– what are the challenges in the current

”crowdsourcing” format in the wiki– …or is that ”crowdsourcing” in the first place?– Can there be crowdsourcing within the

enterprise?

…and to the ”Metadata – taxonomy… etc” issues

Content (Metadata)Infrastructure Administration

Change Management

Objectives Impacts

Enterprise ModelPeople / Culture

Communication /

PROCESSES(TASK)

CONTENT &COMMUNICATION

ROLES(STRUCTURE)

INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY

Technological system

Socio-organizational system

Metadata

Metadata Metadata“Metacommunication”

Metadata

PEOPLE

Metadata in our framework

Metadata

• ”data about data”– but the idea of ”data” is ”dummy” as such?

• …should we speak rather of…– metainformation? / ”metacontent”?

• ”information about information” / ”content about content”

– metacommunication?• ”communication about communication”

– (In many articles the concept of metadata is actually speaking of ”metainformation”)

Metadata types & usages• Administrative

– manage information resources• e.g. location, acquisition information, organizational rules and instructions

• Descriptive– describe / identify information resources

• e.g. cataloguing, specialized index, ”abstract”• Preservation

– metadata needed for preservation• e.g. archiving time, archiving rules for physical condition

• Use– indexing for retrieval and use, re-use conditions, copyrights, versioning

• Technical– authentication, technical presentation, security / access constraints, …

Some Metadata attributes• Source

– internal (from content itself) / external (created later)• Creation method

– automatic / human created• Nature

– technical / lay / expert• Status

– static / dynamic, short-term / long-term• Semantics

– standardized / uncontrolled• Level

– individual content objects or information resources / collections• Etc.• CF. Fortum Organizational metadata definition!!! (Discuss about it).

Discussion about metadata

• Uses for source metadata?

• Where would be most use for automatically created metadata?

• Targets for ”lay” vs. ”expert” metadata?

• Areas for ”dynamic” metadata? – vs. long-term metadata?

• Where to standardize – where not to?

Levels / targets of metadata

• Metadata = ”Data about data”, i.e., when ”data” is...– Content object– ”Abstract” document

• i.e. aggregation of content objects for a purpose• Plan & attachments, Contract & attachments, A view to a structured

content system– Content collection / information resource / ”Workspace”– Genre of content / communication

• E.g. instructions / templates for doing a project plan, for running a meeting etc.

• -> ”meta-communication”– Application

• -> ”meta-communication”

• Argument: Most (if not all) information systems actually ”just” manage metadata about information resources and objects.

Metadata of content objects• A content object = a storage unit of

content– File, row in a relational database, (other?)

• In a special case, a content object can be a(n abstract) document– i.e., a meaningful unit of content for use– (cf. Examples further, the Fortum case)

Examples of content object metadata

(Also: an entity descriptionin a relational database, i.e.a schema for a table, which gives meaning to a databaserow)

Content object metadata (cont:ed)

• Cf. Päivärinta, Tyrväinen, Ylimäki (2002)– Fortum ”metadata description” -> metadata

specification for content objects for document management

”Abstract documents”

• Documents which have an identity and properties, but may not necessarily have content in itself. Represent structured data or other aggregations of content objects (or both) (cf. Dourish et al.)– Report from database, view combining document

objects...• Obs! If an instance of ”abstract document” is stored at a

moment of time (e.g. for archiving) -> it becomes a content object in itself

• Examples of metadata– Report description, DTD (document type definition),

html code positioning elements of the web site...

Metadata about an ”abstract document”

Metadata about contentcollections

Metadata about document collections (Enterprise search at

Statoil)

Metadata about genres -> ”meta-communication”

• Meta-communication = ”communication about communication”– E.g. introducing, motivating, helping to take

into use, guiding, giving access to training – communication tools and content types

Meta”communication” examplesabout applications (& genres)

Obs! a good deal of meta-communicationin electronic meetings happens simultaneouslywith the ”actual communication”....Or whenever I ask Rannveig, Sally, Ine... to help me with this or thatwith my everyday struggle with my applications

Example of using corporate taxonomies (for enterprise search)

Folksonomies

• (see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy)

• (a word cloud about an article ”Tag cloud”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud - when dynamically changing along with content -> ”folksonomy”)

Another ”Folksonomy”

Article, which is to be categorized,”folksonomized”

Example of importance of ”meta-communication”: Wikipedia

• (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraction_of_petroleum)• Basic product(s)

– Encyclopedia article– Good access / retrieval of those

• ...i.e. just a handful of ”actual business genres”• But... Let us see what happens ”behind the curtains”....

– > Lesson: to get a community to ”communicate”, it needs A LOT of ”meta-communication”

• (which seems to get ”genrelized” as well over time -> genres of organizational meta-communication)

• Discussion– Who is in charge of metadata / meta-communication in Aker Solutions– Who could own it -> to be able to standardize it?– Or... Should it be tried to be standardized at all in the first place

Strategies for organizational metadata (only opinions so far...)

• Should a corporation have a conscious approach to metadata / -communication?

• If so, some strategies– Pre-defined and professionally managed (fixed)

metadata• Discussion: What did you learn from the Dourish (99) –

article?

– Dynamic, document creation-based metadata– Hybrid

• Very timely topic, not much research -> Master thesis!?

(Just one ) Grid of metadata

Professionallymaintained

User-maintained

Fixed Dynamic

Corporate taxonomies(e.g. process charts),Engineering documentmetadataDocument property defi-nitions...

Folksonomies, documentcategorization based onuser-given attribute values

”Meta-metadata” (e.g.document property definitionwhere a property can be”open” for user definition,e.g. document keyword field)

User-filled metadata fieldsin documents,User categorization ofdocuments under a fixedfolder structure

Automatic...Automated capture of metadata values,Automatic categorizationof content based on pre-def categories

Automated text index

Metadata Strategy...• Answers to the question: How should we create & utilize metadata about

specific content at organization X? (In the following examples from a target org.)

– E.g. Engineering documents– eNet contents– Share Point teamsites– eMails– Document management systems (eB)– (SAP seems to live in its own world)– ...or how should we structure this problem?

• E.g., are we clear where we use metadata professionals, where we let users to decide, and where we do utilize automatization?

• Related to: How do we need to utilize metadata in our systems & for information retrieval & reuse?

• Discussion: Is there a need for coordinated thinking for this issue inside organization X in the first place?

– And if yes, how / who should take the lead?– Or does someone own this problem already?

”Meta-Communication strategy”?

• ”How should we communicate about best practices to communicate (& use everyday IT) at organization X”– I.e. how much do we prefer ”word of mouth” or official high-

quality content about how to get & use the communication & productivity tools

• E.g., A first site of the corporate portal / course ”portal”• Tero’s observation: very often, no-one seems to

coordinate this, but luckily many people do this (the latter is (mostly) good)

• Discussion: Should this be more coordinated – if so, who, and why? -> and How?– Benefits vs…– Challenges for coordinating?

Metadata vs. Content mgmt,Metacommunication vs. (e-)

Collaboration

Is enterprise content management only(or something more than)

implementation of metadata management?

(Is eCollaboration only(or something more than)

management of metacommunication?)

Mid-term evaluation of the course

• Should be done in week 41

• …should we do it either– a) anonymously in a wiki, or– b) on-line (while Tero does not hear you),

orally, oral results to Tero? (as instructed)• Live Meeting / Skype?