Learning in organisational memory systems: an intelligent decision support perspective

In this paper we discuss organisational memory systems in a modern organisation. In such an environment work activity assumes not only task performance, but also the review and re-assessment of the work done in order to understand and learn from the experience. These latter aspects represent `knowledge work´. From the point of view of knowledge work, an enhanced decision support systems approach can be applied to accommodate tasks that have an organisational dimension, involve a range of knowledge processes, address multiple use in recurring situations, and involve many users. We term such an approach Intelligent Decision Support (IDS) with an OMS as an integral component. In the IDS approach, organisational effectiveness is addressed by facilitating learning in the organisation, which is supported by access to the organisational knowledge stored in the OMS. We propose a schema to facilitate such learning processes by building and preserving instances and episodes of individual work as Specific Domain Models. In IDS, these models can also serve other purposes, in particular, as mechanisms for knowledge sharing and reuse, further enhancing organisational effectiveness