INFS 770 Final Exam - Spring 2004

Professor: Larry Kerschberg

Due Date: On or before 5-May-2003 at 7:20 pm. Please deliver your exam to Room 459, Science and Tech 2 Building.  You may slide it under the door, if I am out of the office. 

Modes of Delivery: Paper and diskettes, or e-mail with attachments. My preference is paper and diskettes.

The total duration of the final exam is 24 hours. You may time yourself on this and stop after the allotted time. You are on your honor to work on this without consultation with any person inside or outside of the class. That means you are on your own.  However, you are encouraged to use class notes, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and on-line databases to gather information to use in your responses. If you use any references that are not on our Web site, please cite them in your answer.  Be creative, be knowledgeable.

Problem 1: Knowledge Management (20 points)

In our class we discussed the theory and role of knowledge management in various aspects of e-business.  Please write a one-page essay, in your own words and your own experience, that addresses these topics.

  1. Why KM is needed in an enterprise?
  2. Explain the four processes of Socialization, Externalization, Combination, and Internalization and their corresponding role in the KM life cycle.  See Chapters 6 and 7 of the KM Book.
  3. The role of "creative disruption" on knowledge creation and use. Recall the KM Readings and our class notes.
  4. Provide an example from your own experience on how KM has played a role in your studies, your career or in life experiences.

Problem 2: Knowledge Indexing (20 points)

Write a one-page essay on the issues related to representing and indexing the "Knowledge Resources" of an enterprise.  Please address the following points in your essay.

  1. Knowledge sources within an organization,
  2. External knowledge sources,
  3. Semi-structured knowledge representation for indexing,
  4. Decision-making software for optimal use of knowledge resources,
  5. Discuss standards that may assist in this process,  and
  6. Tools and techniques, including commercial products, for knowledge indexing.

Problem 3: Leadership Roles for KM and the Learning Organization (20 points)

Write a one-page essay regarding the types of leaders needed to enable Knowledge Management an the Learning Organization.  Cite several works, including Internet sources, in formulating your response.

Problem 4: Web Services and the Semantic Web (20 points)

Write a one-to-three page essay that expresses your own analysis of the following technologies:

  1. Web Services in enabling peer-to-peer computing over the Internet.  Discuss the framework for web services and issues such as availability, scalability and service level agreements.
  2. The role of standards and organizations such as the W3C.
  3. Discuss at least two emerging standards that you feel will be important to Web Services for e-business.
  4. Explain how the Resource Description Framework (RDF) will revolutionize the way we deal with resources on the Web.
  5. How does the Semantic Web enhance the concept of Web Services?

Problem 5:  Ontology and Search (20 points)

We discussed the architecture of WebSifter in class and in the presentation slides.  Write a one-to-two page account of you experiences for the following problem:

You are asked to use WordNet as an ontology service and Google and/or eBay as your search agents to obtain results for the general query:

     "Acquire a luxury car, from America or Scandinavia, over three years for less than $50,000."

Please document the approach you use, together with the synonym sets from WordNet and the search methodology you adopt.

List the results of your query.  The results may be put into an appendix and are not part of the page count.  I would prefer quality sifting of the results.

Extra Credit (10 Points): Specify and/or Build on ontology of terms for the words and concepts of the domain for the above query.