Information landscaping: information mapping, charting, querying and reporting techniques for total quality knowledge management

• Authors: Bor-sheng Tsai
• Venue: Information Processing and Management: an International Journal
• Year: 2003

Information landscaping--an integration of information mapping, charting, querying and reporting techniques--has been developed to enable the construction of a total quality knowledge management system focusing on a particular subject information field. The techniques apply five major parameters of the Fuzzy commonality model (FCM) including unionization, quantity, continuity or stability, changeability, and critical probability, to construct a series of information maps (infomaps) and a set of chronological-statistical charts (infocharts). The infomaps and infocharts are used as the blueprints and navigation agents for building and developing a web-based subject experts depository and query-report system. Focusing on the subject experts/expertise, this system enables a researcher to expedite a query search through infomaps (qualitative reference) and infocharts (quantitative reference). The entropy measurement and the entropy constant (the square root of the average entropy measure) are calculated to compare with the critical probability of the FCM. This leads to the finding of a set of regression straight lines and the establishment of an information oscillogram. The tropics (upper limit, middle range, lower limit), and the potential/ solstitial population and its growth rate within a subject information domain during a particular time period can be determined. They can effectively and efficiently guide librarians and information professionals towards the construction and the continuous development of an electronic collection. The cultivation of a virtual learning and referencing environment can also be created by utilizing this data.