Thesis-2009-Apostolou.pdf (10.29 MB)
The role of metadata in managing knowledge
thesis
posted on 2012-10-15, 13:52 authored by Christina ApostolouOrganisations make use of a variety of knowledge management systems
(KMS) in order to facilitate the creation, storage, transfer and reuse of
organisational knowledge. Metadata is used to describe knowledge by its
attributes and to provide the context, quality, condition or other characteristics of
knowledge assets. This thesis explores the way in which metadata is being used
in KMS. It provides an analysis of the types of metadata used for the descriptIon
of knowledge documents at the semantic level and complements other research
on the evaluation of KMS by focusing on the use of metadata, adopting a user
perspective.
The empirical work was carried out through case study research in two
highly knowledge-intensive companies, a motorsport engineering company and a
pharmaceutical company. Data collection tools included field visits,
documentation, surveys and interviews.
The findings demonstrate the level of users' satisfaction with the KMS
and metadata and their readiness to create metadata when contributing a
knowledge document to the KMS. Demographic factors, such as gender, age,
qualifications, and years working with the company, are analysed in conjunction
with attitudes towards the KMS and metadata The two metadata schemes used
in each company are mapped semantically to the widely used Dublin Core
Metadata Element Set (DCMI), in order to identify good practice in designing a
metadata scheme for a KMS From the mapping, the basis of a metadata
framework is created, intended to be used as a checklist for the development of
comprehensive metadata schemes for the description of knowledge documents.
The metadata management processes of the two companies are analysed to
propose guidelines for the development of a metadata management strategy.
History
School
- Science
Department
- Information Science
Publisher
© Christina ApostolouPublication date
2009Notes
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.Language
- en