Collaborative conceptualisation processes in the development of lightweight ontologies

Published date09 May 2016
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/VJIKMS-03-2015-0022
Pages175-193
Date09 May 2016
AuthorCristóvão Dinis Sousa,António Lucas Soares,Carla Sofia Pereira
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Knowledge management,Knowledge management systems
Collaborative conceptualisation
processes in the development of
lightweight ontologies
Cristóvão Dinis Sousa
CIICESI – ESTGF, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Felgueiras, Portugal
António Lucas Soares
Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal, and
Carla Soa Pereira
CIICESI – ESTGF, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Felgueiras, Portugal
Abstract
Purpose In collaborative settings, such as research and development projects, obtaining the
maximum benet from knowledge management systems depends on the ability of the different
partners to understand the conceptualisation underlying the system’s knowledge organisation. This
paper aims to show how information/knowledge organisation in a multi-organisation project can be
made more effective if the domain experts are involved in the specication of the systems semantic
structure. A particular aspect is further studied: the role of conceptual relations in the process of
collaborative development of such structures.
Design/methodology/approach An action-research approach was adopted, framed by a
socio-semantic stance. A collaborative conceptual modelling platform was used to support the members
of a research and development project in the process of developing a lightweight ontology aiming at
reorganising all the project information in a wiki system. Data collection was carried out by means of
participant observation, interviews and a questionnaire.
Findings – The approach to solve the content organisation problem revealed to be effective both in the
result and the process. It resulted in a better-organised system, enabling more efcient project
information retrieval. The collaborative development of the lightweight ontology embodied, in fact, a
learning process, leading to a shared conceptualisation. The research results point to the importance of
the elicitation of conceptual relations for structuring the project’s knowledge. These results are
important for the design of methods and tools to support the collaborative development of conceptual
models.
Originality/value – This paper studies the social process leading to a shared conceptualisation, a
subject that has not been sufciently researched. This case study provides evidence about the
importance of the early phases of the construction of ontologies, mainly if domain experts are deeply
involved, supported by appropriated tools and guided by well-structured processes.
Keywords Communities of practice, Action-research, Ontology engineering,
Collaborative modelling, Conceptual relations elicitation
Paper type Case study
This research was partially funded by the Project “NORTE-07-0124-FEDER-000057”, nanced by the
North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (ON.2 – O Novo Norte), under the National Strategic
Reference Framework (NSRF), through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and by
national funds, through the Portuguese funding agency, Fundacão para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2059-5891.htm
Lightweight
ontologies
175
Received 25 March 2015
Revised 11 June 2015
7 August 2015
26 September 2015
Accepted 16 November 2015
VINEJournal of Information and
KnowledgeManagement Systems
Vol.46 No. 2, 2016
pp.175-193
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2059-5891
DOI 10.1108/VJIKMS-03-2015-0022
1. Introduction
Research and development (R&D) projects, nowadays, generate signicant amounts of
unstructured information, at high pace, from formal, ofcial documents to audio or
video clips, passing by blog entries; images; news; and informal, personal or group notes
(Caniëls and Bakens, 2012;Prencipe and Tell, 2001). This is very much fostered by the
availability of digital content management platforms, packed with a growing number of
features such as collaboration support, simple and intuitive content creation, storage
and retrieval and easiness of installation and maintenance. It is thus common, in R&D
projects, some project partner organisation (usually the project manager) to run a
content management platform (wiki or content management system) where the content
generated in the project activities is managed. Eventually, this content can be made
available for the project partners or other interested parties after the end of the project.
Therefore, two fundamental goals are in the mind of the project managers when using a
content management platform in their projects:
(1) to full the project’s information management needs; and
(2) to codify and transfer part of the knowledge created in the project to subsequent
projects or to the organisation in general.
Both of these goals are problematic. R&D projects are usually complex projects where
information management poses considerable challenges related to the management of
the project itself: difculties in controlling documentation, information overload,
dispersion of information among different institutions and participants, difculties in
updating and adapting information, lack of time for efcient information management
and the codication process of information (Santos et al., 2012). Further challenges arise
from the need to capitalise the knowledge created during a project execution, aiming to
continuously improve the organisational performance. Trying to face this challenge,
there are evidences that organisations face substantial obstacles in managing projects
information in a way useful to capture and reuse the projects’ generated knowledge
(Jackson and Klobas, 2008). Part of these obstacles result from the nature of project tasks
that make difcult to adopt and deploy information and knowledge management
strategies that span beyond the project life. Almeida and Soares (2014) name this
situation as the “informational limbo” of project-based organisations.
The major causes for the above referred problems lie in the simplistic or inadequate
content organization and classication structures used in the platforms, together with
the adopted strategies (processes) to promote information sharing. As suggested by
Santos et al. (2012) and Pereira et al. (2013), information and knowledge management in
complex projects, to be effective, require that the project members share a core
conceptual model encompassing the domains, processes and tasks of the project. If an
important conceptual misalignment between partners is detected, this means that some
partner may nd it difcult to understand and use the adopted information organisation
model.
To address this problem, Pereira et al. (2013), propose an approach to achieve an
explicit representation of a common conceptualisation of the domains, processes and
tasks involved in the project. This ought to be done through a collaborative process, as
some kind of negotiation is needed so that every partner is aligned by the same
conceptual reference. However, this is complex and time-consuming as it involves
intensive interaction between the people involved. Furthermore, it is heavily mediated
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