proceedings of Student Mobility and ICT: Can E-LEARNING

Applying a Fact-oriented Knowledge Reference Model to Supply-
Chain Management
Peter Bollen, Maastricht University, The Netherlands
p.bollen@os.unimaas.nl
Abstract. In this paper we will show how fact-orientation can be used as a knowledge
structuring approach for verbalizable knowledge domains, e.g. knowledge that is
contained in articles, text books and instruction manuals further to be referred to as
‘subject matter’. This article will illustrate the application of the fact-oriented approach as
a subject matter structuring tool for a small part of the sub-domains of supply-chain
management within the university subject of business administration.
Introduction
For centuries, printed books have been the main source for conveying knowledge or ‘subject
matter’ from ‘knowledge sender’ to ‘knowledge receiver’. In the 80’s of the last century, the by then 60
year old concept of hypertext, became a ‘real’ and ‘feasible’ way of structuring knowledge, using state-ofthe-art
software, e.g Apple’s Hypercard (Goodman, 1988). The rebirth of this concept, in the mid-eighties,
basically was one of the cradles of the world-wide web, as we now know it. It took some more time,
however, before there was a knowledge infra-structure on the web: Wikipedia. In Wikipedia and similar
internet encyclopedias, concepts are defined in terms of other concepts that are ‘hot-linked’ to their
defining encyclopedia page. How does this different way, in which knowledge is structured help us in the
education of students ? Obviously, it will allow us to define individual learning routes through a set of
defining concepts. On the other hand, such a notion, is deeply in contrast with the way in which (PBL)
courses are structured still: instruction centered around a printed text book in which the structure of the
‘subject-matter’ is fixed !
In this paper we will analyze a number of current representations of subject-matter in university
text books. We will illustrate this with examples in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM).
A subject matter has its own intrinsic structure (Nijssen & Bijlsma, 2006). Educational programs
on a subject matter therefore, need to enable students to access such a structure or ‘conceptual schema’.
Unfortunately, in many available descriptions of a subject matter, e.g. text books, lecture notes, manuals,
wiki’s, the intrinsic structure is (at best) hidden among non-structural descriptions of such a subject matter.
In this paper we will discuss a fact-oriented ‘subject-matter’ structuring approach (Halpin & Morgan, 2008;
Lemmens, Nijssen, & Nijssen, 2007; Nijssen & Bijlsma, 2005, 2006). We will apply this approach on
three different text book representations of ‘subject-matter’ for the field of supply chain management:
(Grant, Lambert, Stock, & Ellram, 2006; Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2007). We will assess these
specific representations using a fact-oriented knowledge reference model. Earlier work that discussed the
application of a predecessor to this KRM on the field of logistics can be found in (Bollen, 2006; Bollen &
Nijssen, 1995).
Deriving the Intrinsic Structure of a Subject Domain
In most, if not all cases, a verbalizable knowledge source is a document that often is incomplete,
informal, ambiguous, possibly redundant and possibly inconsistent. As a result of applying the fact-oriented
knowledge extracting procedure (KEP) (Nijssen & Bijlsma, 2005) (Bollen, 2002), we will yield a document
that only contains structured knowledge or a knowledge grammar which structures verbalizable knowledge
into the following elements (knowledge reference model (KRM)):
1. Knowledge domain sentences
2. Definitions and naming conventions for concepts used in domain sentences
3. Knowledge domain fact types including sentence group templates
4. Population state (transition) constraints for the knowledge domain
5. Derivation rules that specify how specific domain sentences can be derived from other
domain sentences.
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