Leveraging the World of Information

1. Leveraging the World of Information Chapter 14 Information Systems Management In Practice 5E McNurlin & Sprague

2. Introduction • Document management: using new technologies to manage the information resources that do not fit easily into traditional databases • Knowledge management and knowledge sharing: using new technologies to assist in capturing and sharing knowledge among people

3. Documents: Definition and Scope • A document can be described as a unit of “recorded” information structured for human consumption” • Definition also accommodates wide variety of documents used in organizations: • Contracts and agreements • Drawings, blueprints, and photographs • Reports • E-mail and voice mail messages • Manuals and handbooks

4. Documents: Definition and Scope (cont.) • Video clips • Business forms • Scripts and visuals from presentations • Correspondence • Computer printouts • Memos • Transcripts from meetings • New items and articles

5. Documents: Definition and Scope (cont.) • A document is a snapshot of some set of information that can: • Incorporate many complex information types • Exist in multiple places across a network • Depend on other documents for information • Change on the fly • Have an intricate structure, or complex data types such as full-motion video and voice annotations • Be accessed and modified by many people simultaneously

6. Documents: Definition and Scope (cont.) • The Roles Documents Play • Four fundamental roles for documents in organizations: • As a product, or support for a product • As a fundamental mechanism for communication among people and groups within an organization and between organizations • As the primary vehicle for business processes • As an important part of organizational memory

7. Electronic Document Management Applications • Application areas that are particularly susceptible to EDM are generic functions in organizations that: • Depend on documents as the primary mechanism for getting work done • Are susceptible to emerging document technologies • Have proven business value resulting from the use of EDM technologies and approaches

8. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • EDM applications that generate value can be organized into the following seven generic categories: • To improve the publishing process • To support organizational processes • To support communication among people and groups

9. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • To improve access to external information • To create and maintain documentation • To maintain corporate records • To promote training and education

10. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • Improving the Publication Process • Documents are stored electronically, shipped over a network, and printed when and where they are needed • Benefits result from reducing obsolescence, eliminating warehouse costs, and reducing or eliminating delivery time

11. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • Supporting Organizational Processes • Use of technology to support these processes generates significant value in reducing physical space for handling forms, faster routing of forms, and managing and tracking forms flow and workload

12. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • Supporting Communication Among People and Groups • Primary value of EDM applications in this category derives from the richer communication offered by multimedia or compound documents, and the reduced time needed to distribute documents electronically

13. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • Improving Access to External Information • Two kinds of external resources are time-critical information (news) and reference material • Ex: news wire items, newspapers, periodicals, magazines, electronic bulletin board items, books, video tapes, etc.

14. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • Creating and Maintaining Documentation • Documentation applications maintain the “current version” of documents • Must be updated and accessed frequently by a wide variety of requesters • Ex: • Internal standards and procedures manuals • Engineering blueprints and diagrams • Systems documentation and operating manuals • Product documentation manuals and other product information.

15. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • Maintaining Corporate Records • Role of EDM applications in this area is to manage this set of official corporate records by providing archival storage and occasional retrieval • Savings from digital image processing in storage space and ease of retrieval are impressive • Additional value comes from: • Reduced misfiling of important documents • Quicker and more accurate retrieval • Better access and sharing over geographic distances • Better version control • Improved retention management

16. Electronic Document Management Applications (cont.) • Promoting Training and Education • Continuous, sequential interaction over time between the user and the information through the learning process, rather than a specific search and retrieval event to obtain a document

17. Document Mining • Document mining is the process of analyzing a semantically rich document or set of documents to understand the content and meaning of the information they contain

18. Document Mining (cont.) • The Value of Document Mining • Valuable in many areas: • Supporting the discovery process in litigation: requires examining large quantities of documents to find the occurrence of specific topics relevant to a trial • Managing intellectual property: can help analyze patent repositories • Managing internal R & D: can be used to analyze internal research reports and lab reports to avoid previous pitfalls

19. Document Mining (cont.) • Managing knowledge: repository of professional services documents, white papers, and presentations that can be analyzed to address clients’ needs rapidly • Business intelligence: monitor hundreds of markets for technology shifts, emerging competitors, and governmental regulations • Organizing complex information: can select relevant documents, cluster them into topics, and visualize the relationship among them • Managing customer relationships: analyze customer feedback, etc., to establish customer policies and procedures

20. Document Mining (cont.) • Functions and Technologies • Enhanced search and retrieval: improves the process greatly because it’s based on the structure of language • Summarization: based on lexical analysis; “indicative summaries”: abstracts that indicate content; “informative summaries”: contain enough content to replace entire original document • Visualization: often called “InfoViz” as an analogy to data visualization or “dataviz”

21. Document Mining (cont.) • Categorization: automatically assigns a document to one or more predetermined categories; based on lexical analysis • Clustering: provides an overview of contents, identifies hidden similarities and accelerates the process of finding similar or related information • Genre identification: indicates the type of document based on characteristics of language, format, and content • Metadata extraction: process of identifying key “features” and extracting them • Language identification: ability to automatically recognize foreign languages

22. Technologies for Document Management • Underlying Infrastructure: improve handling information in any form; have attributes that support document processing and management • Stronger desktop workstations: permit display of documents and delivery of nontext media • Storage media: hold large volume of bits required for rich media documents • Networks: will interconnect workstations of most workers, within and between organizations • User-friendly software: enable computer illiterate people to deal more easily with documents on computers • Operating systems: increasingly document/object oriented; shift focus from applications to documents

23. Technologies for Document Management (cont.) • Document Processing Technologies • Capture and creation: used to digitize information • Storage and organization: determine how documents are stored and organized • Compound document architecture: consists of objects stored on different devices • Distributed storage: underscores the importance of distributed document management software to provide organization and access to resource • Integrating documents and databases: makes documents an integral part of information resources

24. Technologies for Document Management (cont.) • Hypertext: software that implements a hypertext structure • Retrieval and synthesis: information retrieval, text retrieval, and concept retrieval • Transmission and routing: functionality required for business transport of electronic documents: • Authorization • Authentication • Encryption • Filtering • Print and display: important technology is the wide variety of digital printers and copiers on a network

25. Technologies for Document Management (cont.) • Document Management Functions • Status reporting: Who has a document? • Access control: Who “owns” it? • Version control: What is the current version? • Retention management: What are the legal retention requirements? • Disaster recovery: How and where are the backup copies kept?

26. EDM Guidelines for IS Executives • Roles and Responsibilities • The IS department: responsible for evolving the technical infrastructure • Records management: has valuable experience in document management practices • Office management: files will be cross-referenced among departments and linked with online databases • Library: external sources of information available electronically • Print shop: more computer power • Training and education: based on multimedia technology and computer-based courseware

27. EDM Guidelines for IS Executives • An Action Plan • Steps IS executives can take to prepare for developing an EDM strategy: • Form a “document council” • Form a document technology group • Prioritize applications • Develop an EDM plan • Revise responsibilities

28. Knowledge Management and Sharing • Four stages that represent what people do with knowledge: • Knowledge creation and capture: generating knowledge • Knowledge organization and categorization: creating best practices knowledge bases or metadata indexes • Knowledge distribution and access: push-pull • Knowledge absorption and reuse: getting knowledge into people’s heads

29. Knowledge Management and Sharing • The Cultural Side of Knowledge Management: • Behavioral red flags: • Being seen as a whistle-blower or messenger of bad news • Losing one’s place as a knowledge gatekeeper • Hiding from others to prevent knowledge sharing