Developing a Web assisted knowledge construction system based on the approach of constructivist knowledge analysis of tasks
Introduction
The idea that knowledge is the most valuable source of competitive advantage has been widely considered for years. Although no clear consensus has yet emerged on the most appropriate definition of knowledge, it can be seen as the capacity, embodied in the brains of people and embedded in social practice, which interprets and transforms information (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). In other words, knowledge is not only context-specific and relational, but also connected to human action as it interprets, transfers, and constructs information into knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Kang and Byun (2001) stated that knowledge is the product of a learning activity in which a learner, based on experience acquired through cognitive activities (such as perception, interpretation, and analysis), assimilates and accommodates information into his/her cognitive structure in accordance with the environment as he/she understands it and in collaboration with other people. Under the cognitive perspective, knowledge is the advanced stage of information. It means that information represents the fundamental basis of knowledge and is directly associated with the facts of the real world. Information needs to be interpreted, processed, and constructed to form human's knowledge. Nonaka (1994) divides knowledge into two parts: explicit knowledge that can be easily expressed in words and numbers; and tacit knowledge, such as bodily skills and mental models, that is not articulated.
Although Web applications are popular today, the primary use of the Internet, other than e-mail, is to use Web search engines as a knowledge retrieval tool. Various search engines have been developed for helping users to look for online information, but there is just too much information on the Web. From the Google (http://www.google.com/) search engine, there are over three billion Web pages on the Internet. Though it is fair to say that Web information retrieval would collapse if search engines were not available on the Internet, the issues of helping users to find their needed information and assisting them to construct their knowledge from the Internet remain critical.
Based on the approach of constructivist knowledge analysis of tasks (CKAT), the current study is to develop a Web assisted knowledge construction (WAKC) system to help individual Internet users when they search for knowledge with search engines. In this paper, the types of search engines will be introduced first. Then the approach of CKAT will be modulated. The third section presents a WAKC model that is based on CKAT. And the last section analyzes users' attitudes toward the WAKC system.
Section snippets
Types of search engines
Search engines have three major functions: First, they gather a set of Web pages that form the universe from which a searcher could retrieve information; second, they represent the pages in this universe in a fashion that attempted to capture their content; and third, they allow searchers to issue queries by employing information or knowledge retrieval algorithms that facilitate the search for the most relevant pages from this universe (Gordon & Pathak, 1999). Although various search engines
Knowledge construction
Regarding knowledge, it has become the preeminent economic resource that is more important than automobiles, oil, steel, or any of the products of the Industrial Age; thus, the emergence of knowledge-intensive products and services increases amount of information and knowledge retrieval in the Internet Age. The proliferation of the Internet and the emergence of knowledge-based society are accelerating the need for a flexible and generative knowledge construction system. The methodology of
System architecture
The system is a kind of filter-based search system that combines three major Web-based medical search tools including MEDWEB, med411, and MedExplorer. Two reasons for using these three medical search tools: first, med411 and MedExplorer are query-based search engines and the MEDWEB is directory-based service; therefore, using these three search engines may include general types of Web search engines. Second, these three search engines are all popular Web search tools for medical purposes.
System implementation
In
System evaluation
This WAKC system is evaluated by the viewpoint of users' perceptions. In general, when users' have more positive attitudes toward an information system, then the system is more highly used and accepted. Therefore, the current research uses the technology acceptance model (TAM) (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989) for evaluating individual use and acceptance of the WAKC system.
Conclusions
In summary, this research offers a direction of how search engines can facilitate and assist users' knowledge construction. In general, knowledge can be viewed as information in context, together with an understanding of how to find it and how to use it. Knowledge construction from search engines should be investigated based on self-directed searching, hyperlink retrieval and interdisciplinary tasks. The purpose of this research is to develop a WAKC system to help users when they seek
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank I-Hsien Ting for his help of system implementation. This research was supported in part by a grant from the Ministry of Education and the National Science Council of Republic of China, project numbers: H045 and NSC92-2520-S-039-001.
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