AGRUPE - A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOL

Ana Marlene F. Morais and Miriam C. Bergue Alves

Institute of Aeronautics and Space, Pç Mal. Eduardo Gomes,50, São José dos Campos, Brazil

Keywords: AGRUPE, Knowledge management, Research group, Research network, Knowledge hierarchy.

Abstract: This paper presents a system in use at the Institute of Aeronautics and Space (IAE), developed specifically

to support knowledge management, based on a hierarchical structure. This management is not only

necessary to organize research endeavour itself, but also to identify commonalities between different

research areas and needs for realistic planning and strategic development. The proposed system, AGRUPE,

will also help to identify research leaders through the most relevant scientific production recognition.

1 INTRODUCTION

Information is the most relevant value in Institutions

of Research and Development (R&D) where

technologies are obtained through Research Projects

(RP) developed by groups of professionals with

common goals, named Research Groups (RGs).

RG, key unit of scientific research, can be

defined as a community involved with the same

topics of study, aiming scientific development and

specific expertise. The interaction among different

RGs should be encouraged and facilitated by

knowledge management and information sharing in

an open and not bureaucratized environment. RGs’

structural organization does not need to coincide

with the administrative structures of the related

organization.

However, such a free environment may favour

the existence of isolated and often similar RGs in the

same organization, resulting in the duplication of

facilities and development of similar technologies

(Bhatt, G. D., 2001). Therefore it is necessary to

ensure that the management of such scientific

development and specific expertise are related to the

organization’s production chain and aligned with its

strategic goals, promoting the interaction between

the RGs. As a consequence, Research Networks

(RNs) can be formed, where knowledge

dissemination is accomplished by contact among

researchers and interdisciplinary exchange of their

experiences.

Considering this context, the need of strategic

Knowledge Management (KM) is evident. KM can

be understood as a “systematic, integrated,

continuous, purposeful and interdisciplinary process

that pervades the institution, which includes

creating, identifying, selecting, organizing, sharing,

disseminating, using and protecting strategic

knowledge, generating value to the stakeholders

and continually increasing the individual

competence of each employee and the organizational

learning” (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).

Although this is a simple process, it is not

always easily implemented due to each

organization’s unique characteristics. KM models

should be developed considering these

characteristics, including the culture that surrounds

the individuals.

In order to carry on this process at Institute of

Aeronautics and Space (IAE), a management system

was developed and implemented, named the

Research Group Archives; AGRUPE (an acronym in

Portuguese), which is also associated to an R&D

Project Coordination process already in place (Alves

and Morais, 2009). For the alignment with IAE’s

strategic goals, typical requirements related to the

aerospace development were created, aiming to

obtain the needed technologies.

AGRUPE provides the necessary information for

KM and, consequently, the scientific progress made

by the RGs are shared and disseminated. AGRUPE

also provides the Scientific Production Evaluation

(SPE) of each member of an RG which helps to

identify and recognize the leader of that specific RG.

The customized queries make it possible to identify

the involvement of IAE’s Human Resource (HR) in

the scientific scenario.

290

F. Morais A. and C. Bergue Alves M..

AGRUPE - A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOL.

DOI: 10.5220/0003064002900293

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing (KMIS-2010), pages 290-293

ISBN: 978-989-8425-30-0

 2010 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Figure 1: AGRUPE overview.

2 THE TOOL AGRUPE

AGRUPE consists of a database available on IAE’s

internal network server. It uses a GUI-based web

browser that enables the collection, visualization,

analysis and data management related to the various

RGs, including Research Topics (RT) and their

Research Projects (RP), HR and its Scientific

Production (SP) and the relationship among diverse

RGs, defined by their role in the client-supplier

chain type.

2.1 Overview of the System

Figure 1 illustrates the overview of the system in

which the actors and the main components of

AGRUPE are presented, considering the definitions

used in the Directory of Research Groups of

Brazilian National Council for Scientific and

Technological Development (CNPq, 2010). The

system’s hierarchical structure is based on the

technical and scientific experience, and qualification

of the RG’s members. RPs are associated to a

specific RT that, ultimately, provides the research

findings, such as new technologies, scientific

publications, technical reports and patents.

The actors of the system are classified into:

- Project manager: member of the group that

performs maintenance of all information regarding

the project.

- System Manager: responsible for maintaining

supporting data and for validating the RG and the

scientific-technical productions.

- Research group leader: Responsible for

maintenance, validation and assessment of all

information related to the RG.

- User: all individuals with access to IAE’s

intranet. This actor can make specific queries and

visualize all information.

There is an inheritance and hierarchy relationship

associated to the actors’ access and privileges

defined in the AGRUPE, making it possible to

consistently structure the roles of each actor. The

group leader, in addition to his own access rights,

also has all the access rights given to the project

manager, who in turn inherits all the rights of a

user. The system manager also has all the user

access rights in addition to his own rights.

2.2 Use Cases

The use cases were specified according to the types

of actors defined in the previous section and also to

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fulfil the following general requirements of

AGRUPE:

- Clearance to access the system;

- Registration of information in general, also

including supporting data;

- Management of RG, RT and RP;

- Assessment of the groups and associated HRs;

- Customized queries and general reports.

Table 1 shows the number of use cases identified

and grouped by each system component.

Table 1: Number of use cases.

Component

Nº use cases

System Access

Supporting data register

Research Groups

Research Topics

Research Projects

Scientific Production

Human Resources

From these use cases, the possible actions in the

system are identified, including the supporting

graphical interfaces, as well as a detailed description

of each use case. Many different queries possibilities

were established, supported by special selection

filters available to each specific component.

2.3 Relationships among Components

The relationships among the AGRUPE’s

components were determined by the standard

definitions adopted by the Institute. The identified

components were: RG, RT, RP, SP, SPE, HR,

Knowledge Hierarchy (KH), Criteria, and Group

Classification (GC) and its relationships are shown

in Fig. 2.

Figure 2: AGRUPE’s components and its relationships.

2.4 Structuring of the Research Groups

The registration of a RG in AGRUPE is voluntary,

but it is highly encouraged considering that this

registration is a condition for financial funds

approval to support the RPs of a group. Thus, an

RG of minor relevance should look for interaction

and join more structured RGs, hence mutually

strengthening each other. The visualization of the

research environment as a whole picture is vital for

this integration, as well as the identification of the

RG’s leader, who usually has the highest SPE.

The desirable requirements for the RGs were

established, according to the characteristics of the

space research area. The main motivation behind

this effort was to arrange their structure to better

accommodate the needs of this area. The RGs are

scored and classified according to the number and

degree of atypical features presented by the system

manager.

Each RG must therefore be organized around a

leadership. The RG leader should be the researcher

with the highest intellectual and academic

qualification, who is normally responsible for

coordinating and planning the group’s research

work.

A RG is formed by RTs that represents related

themes of scientific studies from which projects

originate, and which results have affinities with each

other. In this way, a strong relationship between the

topics and among areas, with apparent separation, is

accomplished. The RTs are related to thematic

topics, focusing on the knowledge production. The

responsible for the RT is the researcher who, due to

his/her experience in a specific knowledge area,

plans the activities and proposes RPs, following up

their implementation (CNPq, 2010).

Knowledge Areas (KAs) are classified into

Subareas, which in turn have Specialties. Such

Knowledge Areas classification has practical

purpose, providing a functional manner to aggregate

knowledge information, enabling its systematization.

The Knowledge Area refers to the set of interrelated

knowledge, collectively constructed and assembled

according to the nature of the research object. The

Knowledge Subareas represent segmentations of the

Knowledge Area, correlated with the main study

object, and methodological procedures that are

recognized and widely used (CAPES, 2010).

The Knowledge Specialty is the thematic

characterization of the research activity, and due to

the possibility of being related to different areas and

subareas, results in greater flexibility in representing

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specific interests, favouring the inclusion of topics

of interdisciplinary nature (CAPES, 2010).

3 CRITERIA

The requirements that a RG should fulfill, are:

Requirements with weight 3:

- Contain more than one member;

- Have a relationship with another RG;

- The leader must have a doctorate and lead only

one RG;

- Be clearly associated with the Knowledge

Subareas adopted by AGRUPE;

- Have the exclusive RTs that are associated with

the Knowledge Specialties adopted by

AGRUPE;

- Contain at least 50% of the members with

exclusive dedication in that RG.

Requirements with weight 2:

- Have only one leader and with the highest SPE;

- Contain doctors;

- Contain at least two RTs;

- Have an on-going RP;

- Have members of more than one organizational

unit of IAE;

- Have infrastructure located at IAE.

Requirements with weight 1:

- Contain students and technicians;

- Contain no more than five RTs;

- Have all members registered in the Lattes

Database (LATTES PLATAFORM, 2010)

- Have fellow researchers of outside institutions;

- Have appropriate infrastructure for RP.

The SPE is performed considering:

- Authorship, considering the main author and the

number of co-authors;

- Publication of articles in journals and in

scientific events;

- Participation in academic activities;

- Authoring of technical reports;

- The patents, books or book chapters published.

The groups are classified based on a scale that can

be adjusted according to organization´s needs.

4 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Differently of others systems for KM implemented

in Africa (ANSTI, 2010), Canada (SCIENCE CA,

2010), Japan (ReaD, 2010), Italy (DAVINCI

DATABASE, 2010; RIDITT, 2010) and Brazil

(LATTES PLATAFORM, 2010), AGRUPE

provides support for orientation of isolated skills,

grouping them around expertise and leadership,

recognized by no subjective criteria.

Since AGRUPE started operating, it was

observed that the system promoted synergy among

the diverse groups of the IAE, resulting in unique,

bigger and stronger RGs, changing the dominant

situation before AGRUPE. There were an excessive

number of RGs considering IAE’s core business and

size and most of the RGs were not aligned with the

hierarchy of knowledge with a high number of

atypical features.

Finally, AGRUPE shows that KM does not

always require sophisticated instruments. The use of

information technology produces positive results,

but it also requires significant and continued

endeavour to build, maintain and upgrade its

functional aspects as well as the content involved.

REFERENCES

Alves, M. B. and Morais, A. M. F. (2009). The

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http://lattes.cnpq.br.

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http://www.science.ca.

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