Abstract: In the information age, lifelong learning and collaboration are essential aspects of most innovative work. Fortunately, the computer technology which drives the information explosion also has the potential to help individuals and groups to learn much of what they need to know on demand. In particular, applications on the Internet can be designed to capture knowledge as it is generated within a community of practice and to deliver relevant knowledge when it is useful. Computer-based design environments for skilled domain workers have recently graduated from research prototypes to commercial products, supporting the learning of individual designers. Such systems do not, however, adequately support the collaborative nature of work or the evolution of knowledge within communities of practice. If innovation is to be supported within collaborative efforts, these domain-oriented design environments (DODEs) must be extended to become collaborative information environments (CIEs), capable of providing effective community memories for managing information and learning within constantly evolving collaborative contexts. In particular, CIEs must provide functionality that facilitates the construction of new knowledge and the shared understanding necessary to use this knowledge

We describe the use of a recommender system to enable continuous knowledge acquisition and individualized tutoring of application software across an organization. Installing such systems will result in the capture of evolving expertise and in organization-wide learning (OWL). We present the results of a year-long naturalistic inquiry into an application's usage patterns, based on logging users' actions. We analyze the data to develop user models, individualized expert models, and instructional indicators. We show how this information is used to recommend learning tips to users. Keywords Recommender system, organization-wide learning, OWL, individualized instruction, agent, instrumentation, logging. Introduction New Workplace Technologies Enable New Learning Methods In the last decade, an enormous change has taken place in the workplace: there is a PC on every desk, and much office work is performed in the medium of software. Mastering one's software - at least the portion of...

Abstract. An activity is inseparably bound up with time, and interdependent cooperative activities thus need to be coordinated in time. The nature of time is therefore an ever-present issue in the design of computer systems supporting coordination. Based on Activity Theory this paper defines the concept of Temporal Coordination. Then, based on in-depth studies of the socio-temporal aspects of coordinating cooperative work at hospitals, the paper explores this notion of temporal coordination. This analysis identifies some of the highly intertwined temporal problems, constraints, interests, and conflicts, which arise when work subject to temporal limits is to be coordinated. The paper then introduces the PATIENT SCHEDULER, which is a prototype designed during this project to illustrate how aspects of temporal coordination can be supported by computer technology.

This paper presents a methodology and associated technology to create context-specific usability guidelines. The objective is to transform usability guidelines into a proactive resource that software developers can employ early and often in the development process. The methodology ensures conformance with established guidelines, but has the flexibility to use design experiences to adapt the guidelines to meet the emergent and diverse requirements of modern user interface design. Case-based and organizational learning technology is used to support the methodology and provide valuable resources for software developers.

Software maintenance claims a large proportion of organizational resources. It is thought that many maintenance problems derive from inadequate software design and development practices. Poor design choices can result in complex software that is costly to support and difficult to change. However, it is difficult to assess the actual maintenance performance effects of software development practices because their impact is realized over the software life cycle. To estimate the impact of development activities in a more practical time frame, this research develops a two-stage model in which software complexity is a key intermediate variable that links design and development decisions to their downstream effects on software maintenance. The research analyzes data collected from a national mass merchandising retailer on 29 software enhancement projects and 23 software applications in a large IBM COBOL environment. Results indicate that the use of a code generator in development is associated with increased software complexity and software enhancement project effort. The use of packaged software is associated with decreased software complexity and software enhancement effort. These results suggest an important link between software development practices and maintenance performance.

Abstract. Understanding how to implement SPI successfully is arguably the most challenging issue facing the SPI field today. The SPI literature contains many case studies of successful companies and descriptions of their SPI programs. However, there has been no systematic attempt to synthesize and organize the prescriptions offered. The research efforts to date are limited and inconclusive and without adequate theoretical and psychometric justification. This paper provides a synthesis of prescriptions for successful quality management and process improvement found from an extensive review of the quality management, organizational learning, and software process improvement literature. The literature review was confirmed by empirical studies among both researchers and practitioners. The main result is an instrument for measuring the key factors of success in SPI based on data collected from 120 software organizations. The measures were found to have satisfactory psychometric properties. Hence, managers can use the instrument to guide SPI activities in their respective organizations and researchers can use it to build models to relate the facilitating factors to both learning processes and SPI outcomes.

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Most extant knowledge management systems are constrained by their overly rational, static and acontextual view of knowledge. Effectiveness of such systems is constrained by the rapid and discontinuous change that characterizes new organizational environments. The prevailing knowledge management paradigm limits itself by its emphasis on convergence and consensus-oriented processing of information. Strategy experts have underscored that the focus of organizational knowledge management should shift from `prediction of future' [that cannot be computed] to `anticipation of surprise.' Such systems may be enabled by leveraging the divergent interpretations of information based upon the meaning-making capability of human beings. By underscoring the need for synergy between innovation and creativity of humans and the advanced capabilities of new information technologies, this article advances current thinking about knowledge management.

Fund. Nelson Repenning graciously permitted us to administer the tasks in his introductory system dynamics class. We also thank Jim Doyle, Michael Radzicki, Terry Tivnan the referees for helpful comments. Christopher Hunter assisted with data entry.