Knowledge Management business and economy - Essay Example

Users can view information in a context they understand, providing a more efficient and intuitive way to communicate. To achieve this kind of enterprise-wide information integration, companies need to describe and share, in a common way, the data in their disparate data sources. This should include the business description associated with the information asset, as well as location, connection details, data type details, and the information's relationship with other resources. Sharing this information leads to an increased visibility of information across an enterprise, shorter development times, and reduced operational costs as the organization can discover and eliminate redundant information sources.

The author explored in this paper how metadata repositories and data mining are used in knowledge management and how Metadata and Data Mining Management streamline the application development process by reducing the development, deployment, and maintenance costs. This is made possible by the use of Metadata Repositories and Data Mining for logical, physical, and process aspects of the application environment, when tracking versions of the code and documenting all aspects of the application development life cycle.

According to Brackett (2000), by providing a complete, integrated view of the development environment, Metadata helps identify redundant processes and applications, thereby reducing duplicated efforts. Developers can share and reuse existing objects such as data structures, programs, model definitions, and more. In addition, enterprise impact analysis greatly reduces the analysis and maintenance phase of the development life cycle. In his paper, English (1999), stressed that "to achieve enterprise-wide information integration, companies need to describe and share, in a common way, the data in their different data sources.

This should include the business description associated with the information asset, as well as its location, connection details, data type details, and the information's relationship with other resources. Sharing this information leads to an increased visibility across an enterprise, shorter development times, reduced operational costs as redundant information sources are identified and eliminated, and improved data quality as organizations begin to reuse approved information. The best way to manage and share this information is through a centralized Enterprise Repository that drives the connections between data, process, and applications, enforces standards, and is available to all employees".

The need for a Metadata Repository is recognized when the number of applications in an organization increases and the time to design these applications decreases. However, most often they focus primarily on implementing a tool and neglect the Metadata Management aspect. This results in a Repository that is easily accessible, but not often used because the information lacks