Computers in Human Behavior 51 (2015) 705–714

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Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Note-taking as a main feature in a social networking platform for small and medium sized enterprises Ala Atrash a,⇑, Marie-Hélène Abel a, Claude Moulin a, Nathalie Darène b, Frédéric Huet b, Sabine Bruaux c a

Heudiasyc, UMR CNRS 7253, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, BP 20529, 60205 Compiègne, France Laboratoire Costech, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, Centre Pierre Guillaumat, BP 60319, 60203 Compiègne, France c FBS Campus dAmiens, 18, Place Saint-Michel, CS53802, 80038 Amiens, France b

a r t i c l e

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Article history: Available online 14 January 2015 Keywords: Collaboration organizational learning Small and medium-sized enterprise Ontology Semantic modeling Enterprise modeling

a b s t r a c t Managing knowledge (especially tacit knowledge) in small and medium sized enterprises has always been a challenge. They have special characteristics that are related to their size, structure and their members’ coordination and collaboration. Theses specifications affect the process of knowledge management in such enterprises. In addition, they suffer from the missing of codified and standardized supports. All these factors illustrate the urgent need to provide them with an appropriate knowledge management solution. In this paper, the special needs for knowledge management in this kind of enterprises is illustrated. The importance of an effective note-taking tool is justified. A semantic model that takes into account these needs is presented. In addition, we explain our choice of MEMORAe web platform as a tool for knowledge organization. We also clarify the functionalities which have been added to MEMORAe platform in order to be dedicated to these enterprises. Finally, the web platform is introduced. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Knowledge management in organizations has been of growing interest since the late 80s, supporting the transition towards the Knowledge Based Economy. However, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are often considered as remaining external to this trend. Concretely, knowledge management systems are quite rarely implemented in these small structures. The explanation associated to this lack of knowledge management is that SMEs knowledge bases are mainly tacit, which remains quite incompatible with the representationalist approaches that underlie knowledge management systems development. For example (Duncan, 1979) precises that in order to facilitate knowledge sharing, the knowledge has to be communicable and integrable. This means that it should be represented in a comprehensible and distributable manner and should be saved in an accessible and consistent organizational memory. This tends to associate knowledge management to an effective and efficient knowledge codification process. The SMEs difficulties would be the consequence of lack of codification that would create resistance to implement knowledge management systems. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A. Atrash), [email protected] (M.-H. Abel), [email protected] (C. Moulin), [email protected] (N. Darène), [email protected] (F. Huet), [email protected] (S. Bruaux). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.12.010 0747-5632/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Complementary to this explanation, another nature of competitive advantage associated to SMEs. Indeed, flexibility and reactivity are at the core of added value for these small structures. Introducing KM tools could alternate this valuable differentiation. So, introducing KM tools in SMEs is a kind of challenge, which has to take into account these specificities to promote knowledge management KM tools as beneficial whereas they are often considered as constraints for these SMEs. That’s why functionalities and needs specifications have to be carefully addressed. SMEs cannot be considered as big firms model scales, but have their own consistency. Section 2 of this contribution will detail a few of these specificities. According to Lytras, de Pablos, and Global (2009), there is a direct relation between semantic technologies and modern social networking. Lytras, de Pablos et al. (2009) states that the semantic web enables on-line and explicitly represented social information. Social networks in turn provide a new approach for knowledge management and collaborative learning. In such approach, the semantic web provides a semantically rich knowledge representations of interactions between users. The semantic technologies which are designated for social networking are called ‘‘social semantic web’’ (SSW). The SSW provides a new paradigm for creating, managing and sharing knowledge through combining the technologies and approaches from the Semantic Web and the Social Web (Web 2.0) (Lytras, Sakkopoulos, & Pablos, 2009).

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Our CESACO research project is indeed dedicated to knowledge capitalization within industrial SMEs, not to homothetic adjustments of systems initially developed for big firms. A field study in the French Picardy region identified a specific interest in notes sharing (Section 3). In Section 4, we justify our choice for a collaboration tool that support note taking and we explain why other existing tools are not appropriate to be used by SMEs. We also explain why an appropriate tool should be based on a semantic model. Furthermore, in Section 5 we describe the semantic model and the web platform (called MEMORAe). We explain why the platform partially meets SMEs’ needs for collaboration. The developed model and the platform are presented in Section 6. Conclusion and further work are in Section 7. 2. SMEs and knowledge capitalization Apart from a lower turnover and balance sheet weaker than in big firms, SMEs are defined by their small number of employees, less than 250, which leads to a relative important ‘‘weight’’ of each member (Mahe. de Boislandelle, 1996). The main functions of the business are also distributing among a few members who will frequently have to assume different roles and contribute to different functions. This multitasking generates highly tacit knowledge, incorporated in non-formalized know-how and implicit collective rules of thumb and routines. In this context, supervision and coordination remain very direct. There are very few hierarchical levels inside SME. Employees and owner-manager mainly have direct interaction and this coordination is usually made more in the action than based on prescriptions and codified rules (Tsai, 2009) in opposition with big firms models. This rupture becomes crucial to apprehend knowledge management in SMEs. Two consequences must be noticed. First, these characteristics must not be considered as a handicap for small firms. Indeed, the direct and informal coordination is an evident productivity source. Direct information transfer, rapid decision making, global supervision make SMEs more reactive and flexible. So, when thinking of capitalization, these flexibility and reactivity must be preserved. Second, this emphasis on individuals tends to create dependence upon a few members for the ongoing activities. This dependence can lead to difficulties when SMEs are faced to employees turnover and more generally collective learning. This is reinforced by the importance of behavioral or interactive learning processes (Lima & Filion, 2011). Sharing, storage and evolution of competences are strongly linked to individual practices and feedbacks from other members’ actions. So, the main issue of the knowledge management can be summarized as follow: it has to help managers to move from an individual to an organizational level for knowledge management. At the same time, this evolution should not affect the flexibility and reactivity of these small businesses. This compromise is at the core of the development of knowledge management systems. Our field study aims at specifying and addressing empirically this issue. 3. Field study In order to better understand how to introduce a Knowledge Management System (KMS) taking into account these previous explanations, long preliminary interviews of four industrial managers in very small enterprises (VSEs) were organized. The objective was to better understand this quite unfamiliar context since industrial small firms are recognized as weakly engaged in information and communication technologies (ICTs) appropriation and learning. These preliminary interviews were built around the generic core processes of Grundstein (2000) that describe the learning

organizational process in five steps: location, actualization, enhancement, preservation and management. These interviews have pointed out two specificities which highlight this low diffusion of KMS in VSEs and SMEs. First, coordination mainly relies on direct supervision and interaction. Activity often takes place in concentrated spaces of work and between only a few actors with a direct and flexible coordination. At the opposite of bigger and highly structured organizations, efficiency and productivity in these small organizations are closely linked to these interactions that are very little mediated through procedures, codified rules or documents. So, the use of these KMS is often seen as inappropriate and useless. Secondly, managers mention the difficult dilemma they face when they want to introduce these digital tools. Either they focus on standard solutions that are conceived for bigger organizations, and they regret to use an oversized tool; or they focus on a complete customized solution that will be well suited for their uses. But this last solution is costly for these small businesses. In order to check these points of view and furthermore to better specify and discover the specific needs of theses SMEs, we made the choice to reinforce our empirical approach through two channels: observatories in situ inside our partner Tour Equipement and interviews in 18 SMEs all in mechanics in the Picardy region. The only fact that our partner and 18 SMEs accept to spend time for our study shows how the question of knowledge management is one of their preoccupation. They especially accepted to share their time for interviews and observation when we specified them that this research is turned towards SMEs and not stemming from big firms systems. They all mentioned that a part of the official and institutional documents that are capitalized most of the time within paper boxes (because of fiscal and administrative obligations). They regret that their personal and quick note-taking are totally lost although they often concern details that make the difference when they have to repeat an answer to a demand or to reply to a specific order. In order to take into account the specific needs of the SMEs and to avoid the two usual pitfalls, inefficiency and ‘‘over sizing’’, we used with our partner an experimental methodology based on a research design approach. Thanks to our small partner firm specialized in conception and production of clamping jaws, we started our inquiry by identifying a problematic situation that could be solved or improved thanks to a digital solution. The elaboration and the introduction of the solution was a step by step process involving the users themselves during the whole process. Building on this situated, iterative and collaborative methodology, we hope to facilitate the learning and use of this new solution. To identify a problematic situation, as previously mentioned, different interviews were conducted with the staff of the small partner firm (15 employees, general mechanics). These semi-directive interviews identified the different fragmented and personal practices associated to the main functions of knowledge management. They have all mentioned a critical point in the annotation process that supports their daily activities. Each of them has its own habits and artifacts to leave traces of its contribution. These practices are likely to occur two limitations. The first is a temporal limitation. These empirical practices are inadequate for capitalization and storage. Information that is inscribed on these different notes is frequently lost or thrown out, whereas their preservation could be useful. The second is a collective limitation. Information that is inscribed is difficultly meaningful and accessible. Pooling and sharing are clearly not concerned with these writing practices, whereas it could be of interest. The different actors recognize these limitations and agree that improving their annotation practices could benefit collective action. To support this evolution, our contribution will consist of developing a shared and mobile solution for annotation.

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4. Defining a supporting tool for taking notes and annotations The results of the field study shows how the notes and annotations taken by SMEs’ members make a great part of the knowledge circulation within their enterprises. This means that any proposed collaboration tool for SMEs must take into consideration the aspect of note and annotation taking. For example, any member must be capable to take a note or annotate a document and share it with other members of the enterprise. The notes and annotations should be easily found when needed. This means that an indexing system should be provided. 4.1. Taking notes and annotations Makany, Kemp, and Dror (2009) defines note-taking as the practice of recording the essential of the information from a certain source. This resource may be a lecture, a phone call, a meeting, etc. According to Piolat, Olive, and Kellogg (2005) note-taking is the activity of storing a ‘‘stable external memory’’ in order to be useful in the future. Annotations are notes that have targets. Bringay, Barry, Charlet, and Krim (2007) defines an annotation as: ‘‘A particular note linked to a target. The target can be another annotation, a collection of documents, a document or a document segment (a paragraph, a phrase, an image, a part of an image, etc.)’’. Baldonado, Cousins, Gwizdka, and Paepcke (2000) defines the annotation as a ‘‘commentary on an object’’. According to Baldonado et al. (2000), both the annotator and the reader should consider the annotation to be distinguishable from the object itself. The annotation in (Desmoulins & Mille, 2002) is a trace of a reader’s activity on a document represented as a mark which is placed for a specific purpose and in a specific place. Within ‘‘Palimpsest1’’ project, an annotation is considered as a comment added to a shared space (ex: a document), this comment is either a note, an explanation or a criticism attached to a particular text. Both notes and annotations are addressed to a certain destination. The destination may be the writer himself/herself (personal use) or other members or groups of members. The anchor is the visible representation of the annotation on its target (Fogli, Fresta, Mussio, Marcante, & Padula, 2005). When a user adds an annotation, he/she intends to comment, explain, etc. a particular thing. This is not the case for notes that could be considered as a transcription of ideas. Both notes and annotations could be indexed for easy retrieval when needed. The results of the field study (see Section 3) illustrated that SMEs’ members tend to take notes and annotations. In order to be beneficial to others, these notes have to be shared. Using an IT tool for taking a note facilitates its sharing. As a result, the knowledge within notes and annotations is circulated through the enterprise with the ability to easily find them using an indexation system. 4.2. Limitations of current note-taking and annotation-taking tools Several existing tools support taking notes and annotations (ex: Microsoft One Note, Adobe Reader, Microsoft Word, IBM notes and Google Docs). We describe the limitations of these tools.  Note-taking tools: OneNote gives the ability to organize user’s notes into notebooks. The main drawback is the sharing of notebooks which is done only by e-mails. IBM notes is also a powerful note taking tool. However, it also has a restriction in sharing the notes with others.

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http://www.programhouse.com/pal/.

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 Annotation-taking tools: Adobe Reader gives the user the ability to annotate pdf documents with a rich annotation tool. Nevertheless, the annotations are strictly attached to the document and the user cannot share the annotations as being independent entities. A document is shared with all its annotations. This means that the user cannot address the annotations of a document to different destinations without sharing the document. As the annotations are not separated from their origin document, the only way to access these annotations is by opening the document itself. By considering the annotations as separated entities, we can index them and we could access the document by its annotations. Accessing a document by its annotations is not taken into consideration by Adobe Reader. This is the same case for Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

4.3. The need for a semantic model Any platform destined to SMEs must take into account the special characteristics of these enterprises, i.e. their structure, the objects related to them (machines, clients, products), etc. We consider that the users of a convenient platform should be able to annotate machines, clients, users, documents, etc. In order for the platform to support such a functionality, it should be based on a semantic model. Being based on ontologies facilitates finding answers to questions like ‘‘WHAT?’’ is annotated and by ‘‘WHOM?’’. Taking an example of machine annotation, the user of the platform may need to annotate a particular machine to denote its functionality. With no semantic representation for the machine by the platform’s model, it will be ambiguous to find the related anchor of the user’s annotation. The user may also annotate another user of the platform, or even a person who is external to the enterprise (ex: a client). So having a semantic model rises as an indispensable demand for such a collaboration platform. In our research study, three categories of useful models have been identified: 1. A model of SMEs’ structure, related objects (machines, products, etc.). Three ontology models have been studied as a base for enterprise modeling: TOVE (TOronto Virtual Enterprise) (Fox, 1992), Enterprise project (Uschold, King, Moralee, & Zorgios, 1998) and W3C organization ontology.2 2. A model dedicated to representing resources shared between individuals. MEMORAe-core 2 (in english: ORGanizational MEMory Applied for e-learning) ontology model is used as a base. MEMORAe-core 2’s main objective is to model knowledge sharing between individuals and groups of individuals within organizations. The structure of an organization is not taken into consideration in MEMORAe-core 2. An organization in MEMORAe-core 2 is just a group of individuals that share knowledge among each other. The modeling of notes and annotations as knowledge resources could be integrated to MEMORAe-core 2. 3. A model that describes the specific job of the enterprise. This model differs from one enterprise to another. The main goal of this model is to define the ‘‘job terms’’ of the related enterprise. For example, an enterprise can be engaged in the mechanical production. It would be useful to annotate a collet chuck to denote a particular related issue. Having these collet chucks well represented in a model will facilitate the indexing aspect of note-taking.

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http://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-org/.

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5. MEMORAe approach MEMORAe approach’s3 main objective is to manage all heterogeneous resources of knowledge shared within organizations. For that, MEMORAe approach proposes a web platform based on semantic model. The platform with its model make together a support to enhance the process of organizational learning. 5.1. MEMORAe models MEMORAe owns two types of models. The first model is called MEMORAe-core 2. This model contains the concepts that describe ‘‘how people collaborate’’. The second one is the application ontology. The concepts of this model describe ‘‘about what people collaborate’’. 5.1.1. MEMORAe-core 2 model MEMORAe-core 2 model is a semantic model. It focuses on modeling groups of users that share knowledge and resources. The model considers an organization as a set of users belonging to groups. Each group has its own sharing space in which members can share or access knowledge resources. Resources make an important part of this model (Fig. 1). A resource is defined as a ‘‘vector of information’’. There are two main categories of resources: simple and composed. A document, an agent is direct examples of simple resources. Composed resources are composed of other resources (e.g.: a forum is composed of many forum posts). MEMORAe-core 2 model integrates three models (Deparis, Abel, Lortal, & Mattioli, 2014): 1. sioc (Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities): It aims to enable the integration of online community information (Breslin, Bojars, Passant, Fernandez, & Decker, 2009). 2. foaf (Friend of a friend): It describes persons, their activities and their relations to other people and objects (Brickley & Miller, 2010). 3. bibo (Bibliographic): It describes bibliographic resources (DArcus & Giasson, 2009). 5.1.2. Application ontology This model represents the set of terms used in a particular domain or application. All shared resources are indexed by the terms of this ontology. Giving a mechanical enterprise as an example, concepts like collet chucks, screwdriver, clamping jaws, etc. should be represented. For an enterprise in the electronic production, concepts like wires, Integrated Circuit IC, resistor, etc. make part of the application ontology. 5.2. MEMORAe platform MEMORAe is a web platform based on the MEMORAe-core 2 model. The platform aims to facilitate knowledge sharing and capitalization within organizations. All types of resources are indexed by an ontology that represents the ‘‘job terms’’ specific to an organization. In the web client the ‘‘job terms’’ ontology is represented by a semantic map which is present in the middle of the web page (Fig. 2). The semantic map defines a common reference shared between all users. The focus concept of the semantic map is a concept in which the user is interested. The shared resources are indexed by the concepts of the semantic map. MEMORAe supports different types of social resources (wiki, forums, chat) and documentary resources (documents, images, web link). In order for the user to share a particular resource, he/she has to: 3

http://www.hds.utc.fr/memorae/.

 Choose the sharing space in which he/she wants to share the resource.  Choose the focus concept of the semantic map by which he/she wants to index the resource.  Choose the type of the resource to share (document, web link, etc.).  Add the resource. The user can navigate through the map to view the shared resources in the sharing spaces to which he/she has access. The platform also enables the parallel view of sharing spaces while navigating through the map. This parallel view is advantageous because the user can see the resources indexed by the same focus concept but in different sharing spaces. He/she also can transfer a resource from one space to another one by simple ‘‘drag and drop’’ from the original space to the destination one. As a result, the resource is visible and accessible by both spaces and indexed by the same focus concept. However, the resource is not physically duplicated in the platform server. The platform exploits the power of new technologies that support collaboration (Web 2.0 technologies) and relies on semantic web standards (OWL: Ontology Web Language). MEMORAe platform was chosen because it supports the organizational learning and collaboration in the organizations. On the other hand, MEMORAe did not take into account other aspects of the organization (size, members’ practices). So this platform partially responds to SMEs’ need for collaboration and knowledge capitalization and our objective is to enrich MEMORAe with notes and annotations taking functionalities needed by SMEs.

6. MEMORAe-SME MEMORAe-SME refers to the ontology model and web platform which are adapted to be used by SMEs. The model and the prototypes will be tested in a regional SME called ‘‘Tour Equipement’’. This SME is composed of 13 persons and is specialized in the mechanical production. So all the examples presented in next sections are applied to this enterprise.

6.1. SME model In order to adapt MEMORAe-core 2 model, three ontology models related to enterprises have been studied. The first ontology model is TOVE. TOVE (TOronto Virtual Enterprise) is presented by Fox (1992). Its main goal is to provide a shared terminology for the enterprise. TOVE can be viewed as a set of integrated ontologies that model the resources, activities, time, cost, quality, etc. Our main interest in TOVE concerns the resources (Fadel, Fox, & Gruninger, 1994) and activities (Gruninger & Pinto, 1995). The second ontology is the Enterprise project which is presented in (Uschold et al., 1998). Enterprise ontology aims to define the terms, their definitions and the relations between them in an enterprise. Enterprise ontology divides the enterprise into five main sections: meta ontology and time, activity and processes, organization, strategy and marketing. We are interested in the activity section of the enterprise project. The third ontology is the W3C’s organization ontology.4 This ontology focuses on organizational structure. These ontologies are not specific to SMEs. So not all the concepts could be adequate to small firms. The methodology followed in adapting MEMORAe-core 2 model is done by enriching this latter with concepts related to SMEs. 4

http://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-org/.

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Fig. 1. MEMORAe core 2 model. Filled rectangles (Note, Annotation, NoteCluster) represent new added concepts.

6.1.1. Modeling the resources We started by modeling the resources as being a key element in the modeling process.Our contribution to the ontology model started by defining the material resource concept which is essential to SMEs. We define the material resources as resources that have physical existence. A MaterialResource is considered to be a specialization of a simple resource (Fig. 3). The material resource can be specialized to the following concepts:  ManufacturingResource: Resources that play a certain role during activities, e.g. Machines can have a specific role during activity (saw machines are used to cut the metal during the manufacturing activity).  ConsumedResource: Resources that can be consumed during activities, e.g. raw materials.  BuySellProduct: Products which are bought by the enterprise to be sold for profit purpose.  ProducedResource: The products produced in the enterprise itself by the ManufacturingActivity to be sold by the SellActivity. There are two specifications of such resources:

1. StandardProduct: All the parameters of the product are already specified by the enterprise. 2. SpecificProduct: The product is manufactured according to user-specific parameters. 6.1.2. Modeling the activities The Activity concept is also added to MEMORAe-core 2 ontology model as it so important to SMEs (Fig. 4). The Activity is defined as processes and procedures done over time. Every activity requires at least one role to be performed. In addition, the activity may be composed of sub-activities. The Activity has the following data properties:  Duration: The duration of the activity (year-month-days-hoursminutes) Specifications of Activity can be:  ManufacturingActivity: The activity of manufacturing product.  SellActivity: The activity of selling a product.  BuyActivity: The activity of buying a resource.

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Fig. 2. MEMORAe web platform.

Fig. 3. The material resource. Filled rectangles represent new added concepts.

Fig. 4. Adding the activity concept with its sub-concepts. Filled rectangles represent new added concepts.

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Fig. 5. The representation of role. Filled rectangles represent new added concepts.

The role concept which is present in MEMORAe-core 2 model describes the way of participation in an Activity. This role can be played by an Agent or by a ManufacturingResource (Fig. 5). The relations between activities and resources are presented in (Fig. 6).

Target’’ object property) could be any concept in the model (we could annotate any thing). Notes and annotations (as any other resource) are indexed by an index key ‘‘mc2:IndexKey’’ which is visible for a sharing space ‘‘mc2:Space’’. 6.2. Web platform

6.1.3. Modeling the notes and the annotations We consider notes and annotations as resources in their own part. We modeled them in this way in the MEMORAe-core2 model. The ‘‘mc2:Note’’ concept is added to MEMORAe-core 2 model using ‘‘bibo:Note’’ class (Fig. 1) as a base (by equivalence). The ‘‘mc2:Annotation’’ concept is added to the model as an equivalent class to ‘‘oa:Annotation’’ class. Both note and annotation classes specialize the ‘‘mc2:Document’’ class and this latter is a subclass of ‘‘mc2:SimpleResource’’. In addition, both notes and annotation have a particular ‘‘Body’’ (linked by ‘‘mc2:hasBody’’ object property) which could be any resource ‘‘mc2:Resource’’ in the model. The main difference is that the annotation always has a particular ‘‘Target’’ (the annotated data). This ‘‘Target’’ (linked by ‘‘mc2:has-

New functionalities for taking notes and annotations are added to MEMORAe web platform:  Adding notes and note clusters: The user has now the possibility to add or organize notes or note clusters and index them by the concepts of the semantic map. There are two ways to add the notes. Firstly, the user can import a document and specify its type as being a new note. Secondly, the user can directly create a new note to the platform. In the two cases, the indexation is done by default by the focus concept. The notes can be indexed by one or more concepts of the semantic map. New notes may be created as free notes (not contained in any

Fig. 6. The relations between activities and resources. Filled rectangles represent new added concepts.

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Fig. 7. A note which is not contained in a cluster.

Fig. 8. Notes in a cluster.

cluster) or the user can create notes directly in the note clusters (Fig. 7) (Fig. 8). The notes can be moved from one note cluster to another by means of a drag and drop functionality. An application for mobile note-taking is also developed. This application will allow users to organize their notes and note clusters locally on their mobile at first in order to share them in MEMORAe if needed. This application will facilitate note-taking. Users can even take notes, if they are not in the office or do not have internet access. When the user decides to share these notes or note clusters, he/she has just to choose the indexing concept(s) and the sharing space in which he/she wants to share the notes or note clusters.  Adding annotations: The user of the platform can annotate information resources including documents, parts of them, notes, other annotations, etc. For example, while reading a document, the user choses the text that he/she wants to annotate, precises the annotation type, the indexing concept and the sharing space (Fig. 9). The user then writes his commentary and adds the annotation. The user cannot only add annotations, but also filter the annotations of the document thanks to the search tool (cf.1 in Fig. 9) which is integrated to the document

viewer. With such a tool, it is possible to filter the annotations by type, date, author, indexing concept, sharing space, etc. The annotations are accessible either in the document (cf.2 in Fig. 9) or directly by its sharing space in the resources list when the ‘‘focus concept’’ is the annotation’s indexing concept. When the user clicks on an annotation which is visible in the sharing space, the annotation is opened within its containing document. This means that the document is being accessible by its annotations which are indexed by the concepts of the semantic map. A recent test of the platform with these new functionalities of taking notes and annotations took place at the department of computer engineering at the University of Technology of Compiègne. The students were following a course in ‘‘The Techniques of Modeling, Capitalization, and Knowledge management’’. This course aims to analyze the problem of knowledge capitalization. The test lasted three months (October to December 2013). The students had to perform a ‘‘technology watch’’ about a particular topic and then capitalize knowledge resulting from this ‘‘technology watch’’ within MEMORAe web platform. The students were divided into four groups of (10–13) persons. Each group had a

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Fig. 9. Annotations in a document.

particular topic to work on. At the end of the semester (January 2014), an anonymous questionnaire was organized to get the students’ feedback. All the students responded to the questionnaire. students found that taking notes and managing them as information resources enhanced knowledge sharing among them. Students pointed out that they were able to retrieve the others’ ideas about the topic of the group. Students indicated that this exchanging of notes enriched their knowledge and helped them collaboratively work on the given topic. Students affirmed that the indexing and searching of the notes as other resources facilitated the notes retrieval when needed. students also indicated that considering the annotations as information resources helped them to access the documents’ annotations which are added by others. These annotations were available at the information resources list outside the documents. However, the annotations were still linked to their documents and the students were able to open the document by its annotations. A test of the web platform is scheduled in the regional SME ‘‘Tour Equipement’’ this September 2014.

7. Conclusion and perspective In this paper, we presented the difficulties that face knowledge management in SMEs. We also justified that taking notes and annotations plays an important role in SMEs’ knowledge. We enriched the semantic model MEMORAe-core 2 with new concepts that are adequate to SMEs. This semantic model also promotes the social networking aspect in small and medium sized enterprises. The model offers a semantic representation of users and group of users that could share knowledge between each other. It takes advantages of semantic web standards (foaf, sioc, bibo) to define concepts related to social networking and knowledge sharing which in turn supports the collaborative learning. A collaboration web platform is presented as a solution to facilitate notes and annotations taking in the enterprise. This platform permits to take notes and annotations, index them and share them with other members. So, the knowledge of these notes and annotations is circulated all over the enterprise. The indexation allows the members to easily find their notes and annotations in the future when needed. As a result, a trace of actions and decisions is kept and registered to the platform. A test of the platform is scheduled in

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