Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a new ontology for knowledge management (KM) technologies, determining the relationships between these technologies and classification of them. Design/methodology/approach – The study applies NOY methodology – named after Natalya F. Noy who initiated this methodology. Protégé software and ontology web language are used for building the ontology. The presented ontology is evaluated with abbreviation and consistency criteria and knowledge retrieval of KM technologies by experts. Findings – All the main concepts in the scope of KM technologies are extracted from existing literature. There are 241 words, 49 out of them are domain concepts, eight terms are about taxonomic and non-taxonomic relations, one term relates to data property and 183 terms are instances. These terms are used to develop KM technologies’ ontology based on three factors: facilitating KM processes, supporting KM strategies and the position of technology in the KM technology stage model. The presented ontology is created a common understanding in the field of KM technologies. Research limitations/implications – Lack of specific documentary about logic behind decision making and prioritizing criteria in choosing KM technologies. Practical implications – Uploading the presented ontology in the web environment provides a platform for knowledge sharing between experts from around the world. In addition, it helps to decide on the choice of KM technologies based on KM processes and KM strategy. Originality/value – Among the many categories of KM technologies in literature, there is no classifying according to several criteria simultaneously. This paper contributes to filling this gap and considers KM processes, KM strategy and stages of growth for KM technologies simultaneously to choice the KM technologies and also there exists no formal ontology regarding KM technologies. This study has tried to propose a formal KM technologies’ ontology.
6. Conclusion and future research
Previous studies on KM technologies’ category only consider one or two factors in their classification. They also do not provide any presentation of a formal language of classifications. For example, Saito et al. (2007) offer KM technologies’ ontology based on strategy; however, this ontology is designed for human understanding not machines. Kumar Agarwal and Anwarul Islam (2014) map KM technologies to KM processes, but they do not perform the formalization, neither Tyndale (2002) classify technologies based on KM processes but do not present them with a formal language.
In the current study, KM strategy, KM processes and KM technology stage model are considered for categorizing KM technologies, and ontology is applied to create communication between these concepts. Furthermore, this ontology is provided with a formal language so it is also understandable for computers.
