Knowledge Networks:
The Social Software
Perspective
Miltiadis Lytras
University of Patras, Greece
Robert Tennyson
University of Minnesota, USA
Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos
Universidad de Oviedo, Spain
Hershey • New York
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Center, USA
Yiwei Cao
RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Joseph T. Chao
Bowling Green State University, USA
Mohamed Amine Chatti
RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Angelo Corallo
University of Salento, Lecce - Italy
Mariano Corso
Polytechnic of Milano (Italy)
Virginia L. Dickerson
U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development
Center, USA
Gianluca Elia
University of Salento, Lecce - Italy
Pascal Francq
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Alexandros Gkikas
Greek Ministry of Education & Religious Affairs,
Greece
Seppo J. Hänninen
Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Stefan Hrastinski
Uppsala University, Sweden
R. Scott Jackson
U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development
Center, USA
Matthias Jarke
RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Alessandro Piva
Polytechnic of Milano (Italy)
Symeon Retalis
University of Piraeus, Greece
Max Senges
USA
Marc Spaniol
Max Planck Institute for Computer Science, Germany
Pekka Stenholm
George Mason University, USA
Robert Tennyson
University of Minnesota, USA
T. J. Vapola
Helsinki School of Economics, Finland
Marianna Vivitsou
University of Helsinki, Finland
Charalambos Vrasidas
CARDET-Centre for the Advancement of Research & De-
velopment in Educational Technology LTD, Cyprus
Foreword ...........................................................................................................................................xvii
Chapter I
A Knowledge Strategy Oriented Framework for Classifying Knowledge Management Tools ............. 1

Gianluca Elia, University of Salento, Lecce – Italy
Angelo Corallo, University of Salento, Lecce – Italy
Chapter II
Social Software for Bottom-Up Knowledge Networking and Community Building ........................... 17
Mohamed
Amine Chatti, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Matthias Jarke, R

. T..J..Vapola,.Helsinki.School.of.Economics,.Finland
. Ilkka.Kauranen,.Asian.Institute.of.Technology,.Finland
Chapter VIII
Illustrating Knowledge Networks as Sociograms .................................................................................96
Stefan.Hrastinski,.Uppsala.University
,.
Sweden
Chapter IX
Web 2.0 Collaborative Learning Tool Dynamics................................................................................. 105
Marianna.Vivitsou,.
University.of.Helsinki,.Finland
. Niki.Lambropoulos,.London.South.Bank.University,.UK
 So.a Papadimitriou,GreekEducationalTelevision,GreekMinistryofEducation&
. .....Religious.Affairs,.Greece
 AlexandrosGkikas,GreekMinistryofEducation&ReligiousAffairs,Greece
. Dimitris.Konetas,.University.of.Ioannina,.Greece
Chapter X
Knowing in Organizations: Pheno-Practical Perspectives ..................................................................131
Wendelin.Kupers,.Massey.University,.New.Zealand
Chapter XI
Evaluating the Learning Ef
fectiveness of Collaborative Problem Solving in
Computer-Mediated Settings............................................................................................................... 151
Ourania.Petropoulou,.
University.of.Piraeus,.Greece
. Georgia.Lazakidou,.University.of.Piraeus,.Greece
. Symeon.Retalis,.University.of.Piraeus,.Greece
. Charalambos.Vrasidas,.CARDET,.Cyprus
Chapter XII
Acquiring and Sharing Knowledge Through Inter-Organizational Benchlearning.............................168

Technology, Austria
Roland Staudinger, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and
Technology, Austria
Chapter XVII
Enlivening the Promise of Education: Building Collaborative Learning Communities
Through Online Discussion ................................................................................................................ 257
Kuldip Kaur, Open University Malaysia, Malaysia
Chapter XVIII
Towards an Integrated Model of Knowledge Sharing in Software Development:
Insights from a Case Study ................................................................................................................. 280
Karlheinz Kautz, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Chapter XIX
E-Collaboration and E-Commerce in Virtual Worlds: The Potential of Second Life and
World of Warcraft .............................................................................................................................. 308
Ned Kock, Texas A&M International University, USA
Chapter XX
Socializing a Knowledge Strategy ..................................................................................................... 320
Peter H. Jones, Redesign Research, USA
Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 351
About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 388
Index ................................................................................................................................................ 397
Foreword ...........................................................................................................................................xvii
Chapter I
A Knowledge Strategy Oriented Framework for Classifying Knowledge Management Tools ............. 1

Gianluca Elia, University of Salento, Lecce – Italy
Angelo Corallo, University of Salento, Lecce – Italy
Many classications and
taxonomies of knowledge management tools highlight mainly specic char-
acteristics and features of a single tool, by ignoring the holistic and systematic dimension of the clas-

software aspect of wikis is then analyzed, examining how wikis can engender collaborative efforts. It
investigates ways in which wikis help to develop communities of users, and nally some of the features
that enhance the appeal of wikis as social software. The authors hope that by examining a software tool
that users may have already encountered, that they will be better able to understand the basic concepts
and value of social software. Further, as future trends are discussed, it is hoped that readers will be
able to see the value of incorporating social aspects into both existing and as yet undeveloped software
applications.
Chapter IV
Media Centric Knowledge Sharing on the Web 2.0 ............................................................................. 46
Marc Spaniol, Max Planck Institute for Computer Science, Germany
Ralf Klamma, R
WTH Aachen University
, Germany
Yiwei Cao, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
The success of knowledge sharing heavily depends on the capabilities of an information system to re-
produce the ongoing discourses within a community. In order to illustrate the artifacts of a discourse as
authentic as possible it is not sufcient to store the plain information, but also to reect the context they
have been used in. An ideal representation to do so is non-linear storytelling. The Web 2.0 in its “bi-direc-
tional” design therefore is an ideal basis for media centric knowledge sharing. In this article we present
a novel solution to this issue by non-linear storytelling in the Virtual Campre system. Virtual Campre
is a social software that allows a modular composition of web services based on a Lightweight Applica-
tion Server in community engine called LAS. Hence, Virtual Campre is capable of fully exploiting the
features of the Web 2.0 in a comprehensive community information system covering web-services for
geo-spatial content sharing, multimedia tagging and collaborative authoring of hypermedia artifacts.
Chapter V
E-Democracy: The Social Software Perspective .................................................................................. 61
Pascal Francq, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
The Internet is today a widely used platform to exchange information and share knowledge. In this
chapter, we propose a prospective study of the use of the Internet as support for e-democracy processes.
The history of the Internet shows that social software has always been developed to support knowledge

. J. Vapola, Helsinki School of Economics, Finland
Ilkka Kauranen, Asian Institute of Technology, Finland
Knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer have a strong effect on the success of the born-globals.
The objective of the present chapter is to create a better understanding of the impacts resulting from
knowledge sharing within technology-intensive knowledge networks. The study builds on co-opetitive
theory which has its underpinnings in the cooperative game theory. The present study is based on 51
interviews within 31 companies that have business operations in Finland and that have participated in
the Fenix technology program nanced by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innova-
tion Tekes. All the companies were small or medium-sized. Because of the small size of the sample,
the study is to some extent a multi-case study. The interviewees from companies were technology
directors or research and development directors as well as general directors of the companies. Accord-
ing to the results, having discussions with technology partners positively correlated with conducting
discussions concerning technology within the companies themselves. This can be an indication that
technology companies depend on their partners as regards to technology development. There also was
a positive correlation between having discussions with competitors and conducting discussions within
the companies themselves. In addition, having discussions with sales partners was positively correlated
with having discussions with technology partners and customers. These correlations can be a sign that
in technology development sharing information with various stakeholders, including competitors, can
create win-win partnerships.
Chapter VIII
Illustrating Knowledge Networks as Sociograms ................................................................................ 96
Stefan Hrastinski, Uppsala University, Sweden
This chapter looks at the concept of sociograms that has great illustrative importance in some circum-
stances, especially for studying small knowledge networks. It is argued that the sociogram approach
might be particularly useful for those who view learning and participation in knowledge networks as an
inherently social phenomenon. After giving a basic introduction to the concept of sociograms, exam-
ples of different types of sociograms, and their benets and limitations, are discussed. The chapter also
includes an exercise, web resources, further readings, and suggestions for possible paper titles.
Chapter IX
Web 2.0 Collaborative Learning Tool Dynamics ................................................................................ 105

Following a dynamic, processual turn, the concept of an “inter-knowing” is discussed by which knowing
is understood as a relational emerging event. By concluding, some implications for theory and research
are provided.
Chapter XI
Evaluating the Learning Effectiveness of Collaborative Problem Solving in
Computer-Mediated Settings............................................................................................................... 151
Ourania.Petr
opoulou,.
University.of.Piraeus,.Greece
. Georgia.Lazakidou,.University.of.Piraeus,.Greece
. Symeon.Retalis,.University.of.Piraeus,.Greece
. Charalambos.Vrasidas,.CARDET,.Cyprus
There is a growing need for systematic evaluations of computer-supported collaborative learning envi-
ronments. The present chapter focuses on the evaluation of the learning effectiveness of the interactions
that take place in computer-supported problem solving environments. This chapter emphasizes the need
for supporting evaluators of such environments with holistic evaluation conceptual frameworks and tools
that can facilitate the analysis of data gathered during the evaluation process. We discuss in detail such
a holistic framework which has been tested through a primary education case-study.
Chapter XII
Acquiring and Sharing Knowledge Through Inter-Organizational Benchlearning.............................168
Jeanette.Lemmer
gaard,
.University.of.Southern.Denmark,.Denmark
This chapter introduces inter-organizational knowledge acquisition and sharing as a means to facilitate
benchlearning within the .eld of human resource management. The chapter presents an interactive
web-based portal and demonstrates how valuable knowledge can be released from organizational “silo
centers” and be passed around to the benet of both organizations and academia. In general, human re-
source departments struggle to demonstrate their validity to the business and their ability to accomplish
business objectives. In addition, human resource departments generally lack the ability to speak of their
accomplishments in a business language. The presented portal assists human resource professionals in

munity of practice within a federal agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Natural Resources Man-
agement Community of Practice. Content development workshops that are conducted as an effective
method of creating new content and updating existing content on the website are also described. This
successful model may be used by other agencies and organizations to develop and share organizational
information in an easily retrievable manner.
Chapter XV
A Complex Adaptive Systems-Based Enterprise Knowledge Sharing Model .................................... 217
Cynthia T. Small, The MITRE Corporation, USA
Andr
ew P. Sage, Geor
ge Mason University, USA
This paper describes a complex adaptive systems (CAS)-based enterprise knowledge-sharing (KnS)
model. The CAS-based enterprise KnS model consists of a CAS-based KnS framework and a multi-agent
simulation model. Enterprise knowledge sharing is modeled as the emergent behavior of knowledge
workers interacting with the KnS environment and other knowledge workers. The CAS-based enterprise
KnS model is developed to aid knowledge management (KM) leadership and other KnS researchers in
gaining an enhanced understanding of KnS behavior and its inuences. A premise of this research is that
a better understanding of KnS inuences can result in enhanced decision-making of KnS interventions
that can result in improvements in KnS behavior.
Chapter XVI
Facilitating E-Learning with Social Software: Attitudes and Usage from the Student’s
Point of View ...................................................................................................................................... 237
Reinhard Bernsteiner, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and
T
echnology,
Austria
Herwig Ostermann, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and
Technology, Austria
Roland Staudinger, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and
Technology, Austria

Insights from a Case Study ................................................................................................................. 280
Karlheinz Kautz, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
This article adds to the discussion on knowledge management (KM) by focusing on the process of knowl-
edge sharing as a vital part of KM. The article focuses on the relationship between knowledge, learning,
communication, and participation in action, and the role of social interaction and technical media in the
knowledge sharing process. We develop an initial theoretical framework of knowledge sharing on the
basis of a literature study. Drawing on an empirical study of knowledge sharing in a software develop-
ment company, we discuss what supports and what hinders knowledge sharing in software development.
Finally, we use this knowledge to improve the theoretical framework.
Chapter XIX
E-Collaboration and E-Commerce in Virtual Worlds: The Potential of Second Life and
World of Warcraft .............................................................................................................................. 308
Ned Kock, Texas A&M International University, USA
Virtual worlds can be dened as technology-created virtual environments that incorporate representations
of real world elements such as human beings, landscapes and other objects. Recent years have seen the
growing use of virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft for entertainment and business
purposes, and a rising interest from researchers in the impact that virtual worlds can have on patterns of
e-collaboration behavior and collaborative task outcomes. This article looks into whether actual work
can be accomplished in virtual worlds, whether virtual worlds can provide the basis for trade (B2C and
C2C e-commerce), and whether they can serve as a platform for credible studies of e-collaboration be-
havior and related outcomes. The conclusion reached is that virtual worlds hold great potential in each
of these three areas, even though there are certainly pitfalls ahead.
Chapter XX
Socializing a Knowledge Strategy ..................................................................................................... 320
Peter H. Jones, Redesign Research, USA
Since Nonaka’s (1991) concept of the knowledge creating company, businesses have attempted to or-
ganize knowledge as a resource or asset of the rm, with the purpose of creating competitive advantage
based on knowledge. Recent surveys and industry trends show that, after a decade of development of
knowledge management (KM) as a technology enabler for organizational learning.
Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 351

company’s market value and its book value. Knowledge-based resources that contribute to the sustained
competitive advantage of the rm form intellectual capital. However these resources are not registered in
the nancial accounts. In contrast with tangible resources, the payoff and value of investments in rm’s
current stock of knowledge (intellectual capital) will not appear in the nancial accounting until later on.
By all these reasons, knowledge-based resources must now being identied, dissected and analyzed.
Intellectual capital is formed by three components or subconstructs: human capital , structural capital
and relational capital. Human capital reects the set of knowledge, capabilities, skills and experience of
the employees of the company. It represents the accumulated value of investments in employee train-
ing, competence and future.Structural capital represents organizational knowledge that has moved from
xviii
individuals or from the relationships between individuals to be embedded in organizational structures,
such as organizational routines, policies, culture or procedures. Generally structural capital is divided
into technological capital and organizational capital. Technological capital represents industrial and
technical knowledge, such as results from R&D and process engineering. Organizational capital includes
all aspects that are related with the organization of the company and its decision making process, for
example organizational culture, organizational structure design, coordination mechanisms, organizational
routines, planning and control systems, among others. Finally relational capital reects the value of or-
ganizational relationships. In general, it has been accepted that these relationships were mainly focused
on customers, suppliers, shareholders, and the Administrations, among others, without including the
employees, and therefore adopting an external perspective.
Technology enhanced learning is the best term to describe the domain of knowledge society technolo-
gies as applied in the learning context: “Learning for anyone, at any time, at any place”. With the shift
towards the knowledge society, the change of working conditions and the high-speed evolution of infor-
mation and communication technologies, peoples’ knowledge and skills need continuous updating.
Learning, based on collaborative working, creativity, multidisciplinary, adaptiveness, intercultural
communication and problem solving, has taken on an important role in everyday life. The learning process
is becoming pervasive, both for individuals and organisations, in formal education, in the professional
context and as part of leisure activities. Learning should be accessible to every citizen, independent of
age, education, social status and tailored to his/her individual needs. To meet these social challenges is
a leading issue of research on the use of technology to support learning (e.g. The Technology Enhanced

our publication. As an added value to our readers, the further readings are to provide additional related
data in support of the book’s comprehensive concepts, principles and results, as well as studies that build
upon the appeal of this publication as a one-stop reference source
Finally, before closing this foreword of the book Knowledge Networks: The Social Software Per-
spective, we would like to invite all our colleagues interested in Application for the Human and The
Society, Information Systems &Information Technology, Knowledge Management and E-Learning,
Libraries, Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, E-Business, E-Government and E-Banking, Politics
and Policies for the Knowledge Society, Sustainable Development for the Knowledge Society and New
Competitive Resources (Culture, Tourism and Services) to pay attention to an important event organised
by OPEN RESEARCH SOCIETY in 2009: “The 2nd Athens World Summit on The Knowledge
Society” (Athens, Greece, September 2009). Website: />htm Additionally if you are interested in 1st International Conference for the Web Science, please have
a look at
Miltiadis D. Lytras, Robert Tennyson and Patricia Ordonez de Pablos
Figure 1. Pillars for the 2nd Athens World Summit on the Knowledge Society (Source: Open Research
Society)

1
Chapter I
A Knowledge Strategy
Oriented Framework for
Classifying Knowledge
Management Tools
Gianluca Elia
University of Salento, Lecce – Italy
Angelo Corallo
University of Salento, Lecce – Italy
Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Abstr Act
Manyclassicationsandtaxonomiesofknowledgemanagementtoolshighlightmainlyspecicchar-
acteristics and features of a single tool, by ignoring the holistic and systematic dimension of the clas-

of CCKM Fraunhofer Institute of Berlin (Heisig
et al., 2001): knowledge creation, knowledge stor-
ing, knowledge delivery, knowledge application.
Table 1 shows this relation:
Another approach is the Skyrme’s classica-
tion of the hard tools for knowledge management,
that highlights some categories of technological
macro-functionalities, by associating to them
some specic strategical impact (Skyrme D. J.,
2000). This classication is mainly based on
three groups of tools (Information Resource
Management, Knowledge Bases and Collabora-
tive Technologies), and it is not inspired to a pure
technological perspective, since the categories are
not homogeneous in terms of size and they are
not strictly aligned with the market offer and the
operative tools known by ICT expert.
Also Ruggles (Ruggles, 1997) proposes a
classication characterized by a processes-ori-
ented approach. He distinguishes three principal
categories of knowledge management tools:
•
Kn
owledge Creation tools, represented by
tools that encourage individuals to think
beyond their current limits. In particular,
this category includes acquisition tools, syn-
thesis tools for integrating different sources
Table 1. Processes-categories mapping (Hoffmann)
KM Process

ring. This category contains knowledge
bases and knowledge maps (in order to
identify just-in-time the necessary knowl-
edge to perform an activity and to represent
knowledge ow within the organization),
dictionaries and thesauri (to create common
language inside the organization), simula-
tors (to understand previous experience and
design possible future scenarios).
•
Kn
owledge delivery tools, allow going over
temporal, geographic, physic and social
distance inside the organization, such as
virtual spaces, groupware and web-learning
systems.
The main limit of these classications is the
excessive emphasis to explicit knowledge, neglect-
ing aspects mainly connect to tacit knowledge,
that represents a fundamental component of
organizational knowledge. In fact, for example,
some informal organization models, such as
community of practices (Wenger E. C., 1998),
are characterized by strong tendency to learning
and innovation, often created by exchange of tacit
knowledge (Maier R., 2002).
In the classication proposed by Radding
(Radding, 1998), the technological infrastructure
of knowledge management is slightly correlated
with strategic elements. In fact, the categories of

tentially by ICT; iii) the organizational levels of
these processes (individual, group/community,
organization, global scale). The latter is based on
specic functionalities offered by a knowledge
management system (repository, discovery and
mapping, web learning, search engines, portals,
community, collaboration and interaction, vi-
sualization). Moreover, Maier proposes a rst
schematic attempt to link technological knowledge
management tools and strategical knowledge
management approaches, by introducing inte-
grative and interactive functions of a knowledge
management system. The integrative functions
provide a technology-oriented perspective about
knowledge management systems, focusing on
explicit knowledge and on search functionalities,
access, presentation, acquisition, publication and
organization; the interactive functions provide a
human-oriented perspective, preferring the ex-
change, sharing and delivery of tacit knowledge
through communication, cooperation, interaction
and learning functionalities.
4
A Knowledge Strategy Oriented Framework for Classifying Knowledge Management Tools
In the Maier’s model, this relationship is not
always immediately identiable and often the
architectural design is mixed with technological
and functional features of the tool.
t hE propos Ed fr AmEwork
for knowl Edg E mAnAg EmEnt

ople-to-document tools: essentially
focused on processes concerning explicit
knowledge.
The following gure shows the logic structure
of the framework.
Figure 1. Logic structure of the proposed framework
GENERAL FACILITIES
• Enabling Infrastructure
• People and Task Management
• Knowledge Map
PEOPLE
TO
PEOPLE
PEOPLE
TO
DOCUMENTS
• Cooperative Working
• Smart Mapping
• Synchronous Communication
• Asynchronous Communication
• Storage
• Representation
• Generation
• Access
• Diffusion