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Social and Political
Implications of Data
Mining:
Knowledge Management in
E-Government
Hakikur Rahman
SDNF, Bangladesh
Information science reference
Hershey • New York
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Director of Editorial Content: Kristin Klinger
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Social and political implications of data mining : knowledge management in E-government / Hakikur Rahman, editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: "This book focuses on the data mining and knowledge management implications that lie within online government"--Provided by
publisher.
ISBN 978-1-60566-230-5 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-60566-231-2 (ebook)
1. Electronic government information. 2. Data mining. 3. Knowledge management. I. Rahman, Hakikur, 1957- II. Title.
JF1525.A8S63 2009
352.3'802854678--dc22
2008041370
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A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Editorial Advisory Board
Angela-Jo Medina, ConcienciAcción.org, USA
Kam. H. Vat, University of Macau, Macau
Derya Altunbas, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey
Martin Schell, New York University, USA
Ken Stevens, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
List of Reviewers
Shamsul Chowdhury, Roosevelt University, USA
LuAnn Bean, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Deborah S. Carstens, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Judith Barlow, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Hakikur Rahman, ICMS, Bangladesh
Stefano De Luca, University of Rome, Italy
Enrico Memo, University of Venice, Italy
Kristof Eeckloo, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, K.U.Leuven, Belgium
Arthur Vleugels, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, K.U.Leuven, Belgium
Luc Delesie, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, K.U.Leuven, Belgium
Paola Annoni, University of Milan, Italy
Pieralda Ferrari, University of Milan, Italy
Silvia Salini, University of Milan, Italy
Arla Juntunen, Helsinki School of Economics, Finland
Nasrullah Memon, Aalborg University, Denmark
David L. Hicks, Aalborg University, Denmark
Nicholas Harkiolakis, Hellenic American University, Athens, Greece
Reima Suomi, Turku School of Economics, Finland
Olli Sjöblom, Turku School of Economics, Finland
Irena Ograjenšek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Jasna Horvat, University of Josip Juraj Strossmayer, Croatia
Yi Wang, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Yannis Charalabidis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Kostas Metaxiotis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
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Nasser Ayoub, Institute of Technology, Japan
Yuji Naka, Institute of Technology, Japan
Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazán, Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, Mexico
Mario A. Gutiérrez A., Digital Animation Research Center, Mexico
Abdul Raufu Ambali, University Technology MARA (UiTM), Malaysia
Angela. M. Chailla, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
Andrew W. Malekani, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
Frank W. Dulle, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
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Table of Contents
Foreword.............................................................................................................................................. xvi
Preface................................................................................................................................................. xvii
Acknowledgment............................................................................................................................... xxvi
Section I
Content Management and Knowledge Management
Chapter I
A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management............................................. 1
Shamsul I. Chowdhury, Roosevelt University, USA
Chapter II
A Framework for Knowledge Management in E-Government.............................................................. 16
Kostas Metaxiotis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Chapter III
E-Government Knowledge Management (KM) and Data Mining Challenges:
Past, Present, and Future........................................................................................................................ 28
LuAnn Bean, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Deborah S. Carstens, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Judith Barlow, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Chapter IV
Knowledge Management Portals for Empowering Citizens and Societies........................................... 42
Hakikur Rahman, SDNF, Bangladesh
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Section II
Universal Access to Social Services
Chapter V
Better Knowledge for Better Health Services: Discovering Guideline Compliance............................. 65
Stefano De Luca, Evodevo s.r.l., Italy
Enrico Memo, Ca’ Foscari University, Italy
Chapter VI
Governance in European Hospitals: Analysing Governance Practices Using
Data Mining and Information Visualisation.......................................................................................... 88
Kristof Eeckloo, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, Belgium
Luc Delesie, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, Belgium
Arthur Vleugels, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, Belgium
Chapter VII
A Data Mining Approach to Advance Knowledge in Public Government:
Profiling Households............................................................................................................................ 106
Paola Annoni, University of Milan, Italy
Pieralda Ferrari, University of Milan, Italy
Silvia Salini, University of Milan, Italy
Chapter VIII
Electronic Payment Systems in Developing Countries for Improved Governance System................ 126
Hakikur Rahman, SDNF, Bangladesh
Section III
Security, Safety, and Trust
Chapter IX
Data Mining as Part of Intelligence-Led Policing in the Finnish Police............................................. 151
Arla Juntunen, University of Helsinki, Finland
Chapter X
Current Issues and Future Analysis in Text Mining for Information Security Applications............... 165
Shuting Xu, Virginia State University, USA
Xin Luo, Virginia State University, USA
Chapter XI
Data Mining in Aviation Safety Data Analysis.................................................................................... 178
Reima Suomi, Turku School of Economics, Finland
Olli Sjöblom, Turku School of Economics, Finland
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Section IV
E-Governance and Artificial Intelligence
Chapter XII
Applying Dynamic Causal Mining in E-Government Modeling......................................................... 200
Yi Wang, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Chapter XIII
Ontology-Based Management of e-Government Knowledge ............................................................ 221
Yannis Charalabidis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Kostas Metaxiotis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Chapter XIV
Data Mining in Decision Support for Bioenergy Production.............................................................. 235
Nasser Ayoub, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan and Helwan University, Egypt
Yuji Naka, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Section V
Virtual Communities and Cases
Chapter XV
Virtual Assistants for E-Government Interaction................................................................................. 255
Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazán, Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, Mexico
Mario Arturo Gutiérrez Alonso, Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Morelia, Mexico
Chapter XVI
Digital Divide and its Implication on Malaysian E-Government: Policy Initiatives........................... 267
Abdul Raufu Ambali,University Technology MARA (UiTM), Malaysia
Chapter XVII
Digitization Initiatives and Knowledge Management: Institutionalization of
E-Governance in Teaching, Learning and Research in East African Universities............................... 288
A. M. Chailla, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
F. W. Dulle, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
A. W. Malekani, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
Chapter XVIII
Data Mining in Public Administration................................................................................................. 302
John Wang, Montclair State University, USA
Xiaohua Hu, Drexel University, USA
Dan Zhu, Iowa State University, USA
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Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 315
About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 341
Index.................................................................................................................................................... 347
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Detailed Table of Contents
Foreword.............................................................................................................................................. xvi
Preface................................................................................................................................................. xvii
Acknowledgment............................................................................................................................... xxvi
Section I
Content Management and Knowledge Management
Chapter I
A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management............................................. 1
Shamsul I. Chowdhury, Roosevelt University, USA
Chapter I of this book presents various data warehousing methodologies along with the main compo-
nents of data mining tools and technologies, and discusses how they all could be integrated together
for knowledge management in a broader sense. The chapter also focuses on how data mining tools
and technologies could be used in extracting knowledge from large databases or data warehouses. The
chapter further focuses on the reusability issues of knowledge management and presents an integrated
framework for knowledge management by combining data mining (DM) tools and technologies with
case-based reasoning (CBR) methodologies.
Chapter II
A Framework for Knowledge Management in E-Government.............................................................. 16
Kostas Metaxiotis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Arguing that most of the prior research studies have investigated the possible application of knowledge
management in the public sector, Chapter II focuses on the application of knowledge management in e-
government. Recognizing the importance of e-government and knowledge management (KM) to delegate
into the public administration sector, the chapter is a continuation of a previous research related to the
application of knowledge management in e-government. This chapter discusses various important issues
of KM in e-government and presented a framework for application of KM in e-government, including
hints for carrying out future research. Moreover, the chapter, by positioning the proposed framework of
KM in e-government, discusses about its application in a Greek municipality.
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Chapter III
E-Government Knowledge Management (KM) and Data Mining Challenges:
Past, Present, and Future........................................................................................................................ 28
LuAnn Bean, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Deborah S. Carstens, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Judith Barlow, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Chapter III examines e-government challenges regarding the linkages between data mining and knowledge
management (KM) over time, discusses the organizational development of e-government applications,
and details out both general and specific issues, as such social, ethical, legislative, and legal issues that
impact effective implementations of e-government. A final focus of the chapter is the potential strategic
benefits of a risk-based approach that can be used to enhance the core synergy of KM and data mining
applications in e-government operations.
Chapter IV
Knowledge Management Portals for Empowering Citizens and Societies........................................... 42
Hakikur Rahman, SDNF, Bangladesh
Chapter IV is focusing on knowledge management issues for developing knowledge management por-
tals to empower citizens and societies. In this context, the chapter introduced a few critical aspects of
knowledge management perceptions, justified establishment of knowledge management portals acting
as a tool of empowerment, provided insight on data mining as a technology of implementation, sug-
gested a solution by introducing Semantic Web Technologies as an essential technology for establishing
knowledge management portals, puts forward contemporary challenges during the establishment of
knowledge management portal, illustrated a few cases that are acting as knowledge management portals,
and concluded before giving a few hints on future research issues for empowering common element of
the society.
Section II
Universal Access to Social Services
Chapter V
Better Knowledge for Better Health Services: Discovering Guideline Compliance............................. 65
Stefano De Luca, Evodevo s.r.l., Italy
Enrico Memo, Ca’ Foscari University, Italy
Chapter V of the book is dealing with a methodology, Health Discoverer, and consequential software,
aiming at disease management and measurement of appropriateness of healthcares. This chapter particu-
larly focuses on data mining techniques that can be used to verify Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs)
compliance and the discovery of new, better guidelines. The research work is based on Quality Records,
episode parsing using Ontologies and Hidden Markov Models.
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Chapter VI
Governance in European Hospitals: Analysing Governance Practices Using
Data Mining and Information Visualisation.......................................................................................... 88
Kristof Eeckloo, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, Belgium
Luc Delesie, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, Belgium
Arthur Vleugels, Centre for Health Services and Nursing Research, Belgium
Chapter VI of this book introduces hospital governance as a policy domain in which data mining methods
have a potential to provide insight and practical knowledge. The chapter starts by exploring the essentials
of the concept, by analyzing the root notion of governance and comparing it with applications in other
sectors of social services. The chapter also outlined the recent developments and examples in this sector
from the UK, France and The Netherlands. Furthermore, a research agenda has been developed based on
an evaluation of the current state of affairs. The chapter concludes with an introduction to the European
Hospital Governance Project, which follows the outlines of the described research agenda.
Chapter VII
A Data Mining Approach to Advance Knowledge in Public Government:
Profiling Households............................................................................................................................ 106
Paola Annoni, University of Milan, Italy
Pieralda Ferrari, University of Milan, Italy
Silvia Salini, University of Milan, Italy
Chapter VII focuses on data mining techniques that are being used to extract large quantity of liveli-
hood data to extract useful information. In this chapter the data mining approach is proposed for the
characterization of family consumptions in Italy. For this purpose, a series of statistical techniques are
being used in sequence and different potentialities of selected methods for addressing these kinds of
issues are highlighted. This study may be considered an example of operational and concrete approach
of managing of large data-sets in the social-economical science, from the definition of goals to the
evaluation of results.
Chapter VIII
Electronic Payment Systems in Developing Countries for Improved Governance System................ 126
Hakikur Rahman, SDNF, Bangladesh
Chapter VIII provides a general overview on contemporary electronic payment systems, focusing de-
veloping countries and tried to relate electronic payment systems as an enabler of financial empower-
ment. This chapter reiterated that by raising economic activities via electronic means, as a component
of electronic commerce, could augment the electronic governance system of a country. It has also put
forward various issues, challenges, methods and tools needed to implement electronic payment systems,
especially focusing developing countries.
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Section III
Security, Safety, and Trust
Chapter IX
Data Mining as Part of Intelligence-Led Policing in the Finnish Police............................................. 151
Arla Juntunen, University of Helsinki, Finland
Chapter IX discusses how a public sector organization made an effort to enhance their collaborative
processes and organizational knowledge base in a specific functional area and how they implemented
KM-tools to improve knowledge and information sharing and transferal both within the organization and
among partners. This chapter aims to promote knowledge management and KM-tools usage in govern-
ment and to identify the challenges and benefits gained by an implementation of analytical solutions. It
also describes the managerial and organizational implications on the usage of analytical solutions and
the effects on political decision-making and government programs.
Chapter X
Current Issues and Future Analysis in Text Mining for Information Security Applications............... 165
Shuting Xu, Virginia State University, USA
Xin Luo, Virginia State University, USA
Chapter X addresses a variety of technological applications of text mining on security issues. In this
chapter, it is argued that the text mining technology has become vital in the arena of information systems
security (ISS), especially after the 9/11 tragedy. This chapter tends to shed light on the correlation between
text mining and ISS, and thereby addresses various text mining applications in ISS. It has tried to put
forward various text mining applications, including social network analysis, abnormal detection, topic
discovery and identity detection, and also discusses on social perspective of text mining. The chapter
has also presented a section on future analysis of text mining for ISS research.
Chapter XI
Data Mining in Aviation Safety Data Analysis.................................................................................... 178
Reima Suomi, Turku School of Economics, Finland
Olli Sjöblom, Turku School of Economics, Finland
Chapter XI introduces aviation safety data analysis as an important application area for data mining.
The chapter begins with the introduction of the basic concepts of data mining, and afterwards, the field
of aviation safety management is discussed. In that connection, data mining is identified as a key tech-
nology to study through flight incidents reports. Later on, the test runs for four data mining products,
for possible use in the Finnish civil aviation authority, are described in detail. The chapter ends with
conclusions, which convey that even sophisticated data mining tools are just tools: they do not provide
any automatic gears, but skilled users can use them for searching potential clues in the data.
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Section IV
E-Governance and Artificial Intelligence
Chapter XII
Applying Dynamic Causal Mining in E-Government Modeling......................................................... 200
Yi Wang, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Chapter XII uses Dynamics Causal Mining as the technique for modeling and analyze E-government,
where Dynamics Causal Mining is a combination of System Dynamics and Data Mining. This chapter
suggests an integration of System Dynamics and Association Mining for identifying causality and ex-
panding the application area of both techniques. This gives an improved description of the target system
represented by a database; it can also improve strategy selection and other forms of decision making.
Chapter XIII
Ontology-Based Management of e-Government Knowledge ............................................................ 221
Yannis Charalabidis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Kostas Metaxiotis, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Touching upon all knowledge management processes from knowledge capture, knowledge sharing, to
knowledge creation, Chapter XIII goes beyond the methodology and tools used for developing such
a system for the Greek Government, to the integration and the diffusion of e-Government knowledge
with the help of formal ontology definitions - capturing the core elements of the domain together with
their main relationships.
Chapter XIV
Data Mining in Decision Support for Bioenergy Production.............................................................. 235
Nasser Ayoub, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan and Helwan University, Egypt
Yuji Naka, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Chapter XIV presents data mining, as a planning and decision support tool for biomass resources
management to produce bio-energy. Furthermore, the chapter has tried to define the decision making
problem for bio-energy production. The Decision Support System, that utilizes a data mining technique,
e.g. clustering, integrated with other group of techniques and tools, such as Genetic Algorithms, Life
Cycle Assessment, Geographical Information System, etc, is presented. Finally, a case study has been
included that shows how to tackle the decision making problem.
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Section V
Virtual Communities and Cases
Chapter XV
Virtual Assistants for E-Government Interaction................................................................................. 255
Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazán, Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, Mexico
Mario Arturo Gutiérrez Alonso, Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Morelia, Mexico
Chapter XV provided an example of a user-friendly interface for knowledge management and infor-
mation retrieval, through the use of virtual assistants in E-government applications. The chapter has
also presented a short state of the art on-line virtual assistants technology, highlighting the knowledge
management aspects. Along this perspective, two case studies from the Mexican state of Guanajuato,
and the Federal Government Citizen’s Web Page are being presented and discussed. These case studies
provided new insights into access methods, interfaces and ways to query and present information in
e-government applications.
Chapter XVI
Digital Divide and its Implication on Malaysian E-Government: Policy Initiatives........................... 267
Abdul Raufu Ambali,University Technology MARA (UiTM), Malaysia
Chapter XVI seeks to address the digital divide associated with e-government, which can serve as impedi-
ment for application of information and communication technology (ICT). As a case study, the chapter
explores the various initiatives that have been undertaken by the Malaysian government to bridge the
newly evolved digital gap.
Chapter XVII
Digitization Initiatives and Knowledge Management: Institutionalization of
E-Governance in Teaching, Learning and Research in East African Universities............................... 288
A. M. Chailla, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
F. W. Dulle, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
A. W. Malekani, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania
Chapter XVII discusses the problems of digitization, challenges and future opportunities for East African
university libraries with focus on collaborative efforts and strategies backed up with policies for invest-
ments in ICTs training and integration of ICTs into the core university activities for effective knowledge
management (KM) and information dissemination. It is argued in the chapter that digitization of library
information will add value to more effective university KM, faster information access and better use in
multidisciplinary fields including local content.
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Chapter XVIII
Data Mining in Public Administration................................................................................................. 302
John Wang, Montclair State University, USA
Xiaohua Hu, Drexel University, USA
Dan Zhu, Iowa State University, USA
Businesses are now facing globalized competition and are being forced to deal with an enormous amount
of data. The vast amounts of data and the increasing technological ability to store them also facilitated
data mining. In order to gain a certain level of competitive advantage, businesses now commonly adopt
a data analytical technology called data mining. Nowadays, data mining is more widely used than ever
before, not only by businesses who seek profits, but also by nonprofit organizations, government agen-
cies, private groups, and other institutions in the public sector. Organizations use data mining as a tool
to forecast customer behavior, reduce fraud and waste, and assist in medical research.
Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 315
About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 341
Index.................................................................................................................................................... 347
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xvi
Foreword
Knowledge management has become an essential element of this contemporary world that is driven by
information and knowledge. Knowledge management is needed to facilitate information exchange, content
management, service delivery and transaction processes with the citizens, as well as inter-governmen-
tal activities, inter alia. Furthermore, adopting innovative information and communication technology
(ICT) methods diversified applications are being carried across the globe to upgrade capacity, learning
skill and knowledge acquisition by the common people of the society. In this way, many countries have
reached to an elevated platform of knowledge dynamics.
Knowledge acquisition processes require manipulation and handling of huge amount of information
and data for appropriate management and thereby, assist the end-user to take knowledgeable decisions.
Intelligent decision-making techniques, in effect, directly and indirectly assist the stakeholders to upgrade
their governance system, be it a government, a business or a society.
Nowadays, governance system in a large extent depends on the information delivery performance,
thereby, influence strengthening of electronic governance in the society. Thus, knowledge management
in electronic government (e-government) deserves appropriate manipulation of information, data and
content utilizing pertinent technologies. In this aspect, data mining is an emerging technology, which
is being used by concurrent researchers for developing necessary tools and techniques in the intelligent
decision making processes.
A book focusing knowledge management in e-government through application of data mining techniques
inflicting social, economical, technological and political implications for overall society development
is a very crucial and timely achieved output. Such a book will generate tremendous impetus, not only
for general research, but also will create enormous research initiations, and at the same time will act as
a potential guideline for the development practitioners. This book will find its usefulness to academia,
development agencies, government and non-government organizations and policy initiators.
Prof. Dr. A.M.M. Safiullah
Vice Chancellor
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
Dhaka, Bangladesh
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xvii
Preface
Data mining can be termed, as the extraction process of hidden predictive information from huge da-
tabases. In a sense, data mining is a powerful emerging technology with enormous potential to assist
communities focus on the most important information in their livelihoods. Utilizing data mining tools
trends, patterns and behaviors of data can be monitored, and at the same time assist to predict future
trends and behaviors of data. This allows societies/ entrepreneurs/ agencies to make proactive, intelligent,
and knowledge-driven decisions. Furthermore, the automated and prospective analyses offered by data
mining budge beyond the analyses of past events provided by demonstrative tools typical of decision
support systems. Foremost, data mining tools can respond to diversified questions that traditionally were
too time consuming to resolve. They scour databases for hidden patterns, finding predictive information
that experts may miss because they lies outside their normal expectations (DIG White Paper, 1995).
Nowadays, data mining can also be termed as knowledge discovery processes, and increasingly
becoming one of the most acknowledged topics in information technology. Much of it deals with the
process of automatically retrieving essential information and discovering hidden relationships that is
crucial in making knowledgeable decisions (Chen & Liu, 2005). During the last decade, data mining
has been used in diversified application domains and has proven the ability to support various types of
critical applications under knowledge discovery.
As an emerging field, data mining attracted potential researchers in this community, and at the same
time, many have endorsed its diversified utilizations. Among several trends of its utilizations, archival of
high-dimensional data; incorporation of semantic search; rapid data-driven analysis; knowledge-driven
end products are phenomenal. In these contexts, social and political implications of data mining are
important, especially in the realm of knowledge management in e-government. Ranging from providing
value added social services, knowledge acquisition processes to electronic government initiatives, and
content management systems implication of data mining converges. However, by far political implica-
tions of data mining in the knowledge management processes remain confined in the central bodies
and corporate agencies. For proper knowledge development at the grass roots and for homogeneous
distribution of knowledge acquisition system, bi-directional thoroughfare is desired in terms of policy
initiations.
As Chaterjee (2005) outlines, data mining techniques are the outcome of an extensive process of
study, research and product development. In essence, this evolution began when entrepreneurs started
archiving business data in computers, efforts continued with improvements in easier data access, and
more recently, researches generated technologies that allow users to navigate through their data in real
time. Over the time, data mining takes this evolutionary development beyond retrospective data access,
thus routing the expansion towards proactive information delivery for the management of human liveli-
hood through improved intelligentsia.
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Eventually, data mining is becoming a significant tool in science, engineering, industrial processes,
healthcare, medicine, and other social services for making intelligent decision. However, the datasets in
these fields are predominantly large, complex, and often noisy. Therefore, extracting knowledge from
data requires the use of sophisticated, high-performance and principled analysis techniques and algo-
rithms, based on sound statistical foundations. These techniques in turn necessitate powerful visualization
technologies; implementations that must be carefully tuned for performance; software systems that are
usable by scientists, engineers, and physicians as well as researchers; and infrastructures that support
them (Mueller, 2004; SIAM, 2006).
Well developed information and communication network infrastructure and knowledge building
applications, adapted to regional, national and local conditions, easily accessible and affordable, and
making greater use of locally available technologies and other innovative methods where possible,
can accelerate the social and economic progress of countries, and the well being of all individuals and
communities. However, knowledge acquisition from crude data mostly depends on social, cultural,
economical and political aspects of a country, rather than pure technology. It requires incorporation of
intricately built knowledge management tools and techniques, archival of discrete data or information
to feed the knowledge acquisition system and management of very superficial and complicated data or
information within the system.
The issues and aspects of archiving scientific data include the discipline specific needs and practices
of scientific communities as well as interdisciplinary values and methods. However, when this archi-
val process is targeted to improve the livelihood of common people of the community, increase their
knowledge level and eventually enhance the governance system, the tasks of data archiving ranges from
accumulating, digitizing, preserving, providing security to providing easy accessibility. Thus, data ar-
chiving amalgamates with social diversifications, economic variations, cultural conjunctures, political
peripheries and foremost, deals with human psychology. Data archiving becomes part and parcel of day-
to-day activities of human life and management of these data reflects variation of human endeavors.
The leveraging of data mining tools to facilitate knowledge management and e-governance incor-
porates contexts of health care, literacy, governance issues, civic responsiveness, environment issues,
climate changes and most importantly, equitable access for economic opportunities by creating social
capital that are essential for the holistic deployment of economic development activities of a society.
These issues are intricately intermingled with social and political environment of a nation. This book
has tried to include issues, aspects, features, experiments, projects and cases related to socio-political
enhancements among connected communities utilizing data mining techniques in the context of knowl-
edge discovery and knowledge enhancement processes.
Where this book stands
In this interconnected world, where information is an essential element of community empowerment,
capacity development and socio-economic development, data mining is widening emerging and rela-
tively a new area of research and development, which can provide important outcomes to the common
citizens. It can yield substantial knowledge from even raw data that are primarily gathered for wider
range of applications. In this context, various institutions have already started to derive considerable
benefits from its diversified applications and at the same time, many other industries and disciplines are
applying the technique in increasing effect for their own development.
However, the challenge of equitable distribution of resources for homogenous development taking into
account the social, cultural, political and economic background protecting everyone’s interest confronts
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policy initiators, academics and researchers, including government and non-government agencies, and
development partners for taking attempt to create a development dynamics. Data mining would assist this
evolutionary process beyond retrospective data access and routing to potential and proactive information
delivery. This book includes various aspects of existing data mining and decision support techniques
and their requirements to improvise the development of such information system at each tier of the
governance structure. It also incorporated global initiatives and highlight their capabilities depicting real
life cases to act as role models. The cases are on improvement of governance system, enhancement of
peace building effort, electoral up-gradation, improvement of learning mechanism, scientific perfection,
interactive imagery, or simple content repository for knowledge building.
Primary objective of this publication is to promote knowledge management in e-government,
identify knowledge management technologies, and highlight the challenges in the implementation of
e-government systems and especially knowledge management solutions at the grass roots. Moreover,
as the contemporary world has began to realize that the political and economic significance of the more
than half of the world’s population are living in largely untapped rural setting, realization of pragmatic
knowledge acquisition processes to improve e-governance has become prime importance for every na-
tion. For this reason, Governments and nongovernmental organizations, including development agencies
are increasingly concerned with addressing economic development goals and stability, stubborn deficit
in rural health and learning, urban migration, environmental degradation, and other related trends. In
these circumstances, a publication on knowledge management processes focusing e-governance featuring
emerging technology like data mining deserves primary importance among the academia, researchers,
development practitioners, policy initiators and individuals.
Today many research communities, including informatics, systematics, academics, phylogenetics,
ontologists, physicians, scientists and ecologists, are on the verge of transformation as a consequence
of network capability that enable a new class of research dimension based on instant interaction with
networked information servers and computational services, in a newly evolved paradigm known as ‘grid
computing.’ High-throughput information backbones linking data enabled desktops of scientists around
the globe assist to launch a new class of research collaboration with ‘wired together’ in a virtual and
global environment. These processes are generating remarkable amount of data/content to be capitulated
for effective deployment of knowledge acquisition system, and, therefore demand competent data/info
mining techniques at the both end of usage (generator and end user). The book included conceptual
framework, various analysis and synthesizes a variety of data mining techniques for improvement of
social and political systems, varying from healthcare services, bio-energy database, crime analysis, and
aviation safety to learning, portal management system, e-government modeling, and ontology.
The major asset of this book is the accumulation of several theoretical researches, case analysis,
and a few practical implementation processes accompanying profound discussions and techniques for
accomplishing tasks that one could easily adopt even in a non-technical environment. In fact, this book
will act, not only as a research guide but also as an implementation guide in the longer run.
Organization of the book
The book is organized into five sections with seventeen chapters. A brief description of each of the
chapters follows:
In recent years data warehousing and data mining are being used as unique tools in decision sup-
port, business intelligence and other kind of social and economic applications. Chapter I of this book
presents various data warehousing methodologies along with the main components of data mining tools
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and technologies, and discusses how they all could be integrated together for knowledge management
in a broader sense. The chapter also focuses on how data mining tools and technologies could be used
in extracting knowledge from large databases or data warehouses. The chapter further focuses on the
reusability issues of knowledge management and presents an integrated framework for knowledge
management by combining data mining (DM) tools and technologies with case-based reasoning (CBR)
methodologies.
While current literature on knowledge management has been addressing issues, challenges and op-
portunities for the private sector initiatives, little has been discussed for the public sector, and even less
in the aspect of e-government. Acknowledging the fact that the implementation of a framework for the
application of knowledge management in e-government is a challenging task that requires coordination
and contribution from many agencies, departments and policy makers, Chapter II tried to put forward
a framework for knowledge management in e-government for better e-government management. Fur-
thermore, recognizing the importance of e-government and knowledge management (KM) to devolve
into the public administration sector, the chapter put forward the continuation of a previous research
related to the application of knowledge management in e-government. This chapter discusses important
issues of KM in e-government and presented the framework for application of KM in e-government as
a basis for future research. Finally, by positioning the proposed framework of KM in e-government, the
chapter discusses about its application in a Greek municipality.
It is evident that appropriate data mining models and applications in e-government settings have the
potential to bring major benefits to wider range of stakeholders. Furthermore, as these models evolve,
structural transitions occur within e-government that includes an evolution of managerial practices
through knowledge management (KM). Chapter III examines e-government challenges regarding the
linkages between data mining and KM over time, discusses the organizational development of e-govern-
ment applications, and details out both general and specific issues, as such social, ethical, legislative,
and legal issues that impact effective implementations of e-government. A final focus of the chapter is
the potential strategic benefits of a risk-based approach that can be used to enhance the core synergy of
KM and data mining applications in e-government operations.
Knowledge management is not just a simple technology driven process, rather it is policy driven
issue that is intermingled with technology, decision, management and intellectuality. Along this way,
empowering common citizens utilizing knowledge development utilities is a challenge to the research-
ers and development practitioners. Furthermore, dissemination of intellectual content for public view,
their understanding, capacity development, and specifically for being utilized as a tool to increase their
social, educational, political and economic ability is by far the most difficult part of the system. Chapter
IV of the book is focusing on knowledge management issues for developing knowledge management
portals to empower citizens and societies. In this context, the chapter introduced a few critical aspects of
knowledge management perceptions, justified establishment of knowledge management portals acting
as a tool of empowerment, provided insight on data mining as a technology of implementation, sug-
gested a solution by introducing Semantic Web Technologies as an essential technology for establishing
knowledge management portals, puts forward contemporary challenges during the establishment of
knowledge management portal, illustrated a few cases that are acting as knowledge management portals,
and concluded before giving a few hints on future research issues for empowering common element of
the society.
Utilizing data mining techniques, knowledge management in e-government is enhanced that evidently
augments provision of improved social services by the government and other actors in the society. Along
this perspective, the importance of various social services including education and health is constantly
increasing. Simultaneously, as the societies are growing older, the awareness of a proper social care is
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spreading among citizens. However, the central issue, here is the increasing cost of maintaining such social
care systems, especially the expenses in healthcare are an important portion of the overall expenses of a
country. Therefore, it is very important to determine if the given cares are the appropriate ones. Chapter
V of the book is dealing with a methodology, Health Discoverer, and consequential software, aiming at
disease management and measurement of appropriateness of cares. This chapter particularly focuses on
data mining techniques that can be used to verify Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) compliance and
the discovery of new, better guidelines. The work is based on Quality Records, episode parsing using
Ontologies and Hidden Markov Models.
As discussed in Chapter five, governance in healthcare refers to the complexity of checks and balances
that determine how decisions are made within the top structures of hospitals. In this aspect, Chapter VI
of this book introduces hospital governance as a policy domain in which data mining methods have a
potential to provide insight and practical knowledge. The chapter starts by exploring the essentials of the
concept, by analyzing the root notion of governance and comparing it with applications in other sectors
of social services. The chapter also outlined the recent developments and examples in this sector from
the UK, France and The Netherlands. Furthermore, a research agenda has been developed based on an
evaluation of the current state of affairs. The chapter concludes with an introduction to the European
Hospital Governance Project, which follows the outlines of the described research agenda.
Along the context of universal access to social services, apart from education and healthcare improved
livelihood is important for better governance. Chapter VII focuses on data mining techniques that are
being used to extract large quantity of data to get useful information. In this chapter the data mining
approach is proposed for the characterization of family consumptions in Italy. The research has found
that Italian expenditures form a complex system, and to mitigate this, the Italian National Bureau of
Statistics (ISTAT) carries out a survey each year on the expenditure behaviour of Italian families. The
survey enumerates household expenditures on durable and daily goods and on various services. For this
purpose, a series of statistical techniques are used in sequence and different potentialities of selected
methods for addressing these kinds of issues are pinpointed. This study recommends that, further in-
vestigation is needed to properly focalize on service usage for the characterization, for example, of the
nature of investigated services (private or public) and, most of all, about their supply and effectiveness
across the national territory. Still this study may be considered an example of operational and concrete
approach of managing of large data-sets in the social-economical science, from the definition of goals
to the evaluation of results.
Apart from education, healthcare, and livelihood services stable economic transactions is an important
component of the governance system of a country. In this aspect, payment processes are the core of the
economic transactions, whether the transaction is national or global. Payment system is an age-old system
of transfer of properties. It has taken diverse forms depending on demand, usage, acceptability, tradition,
culture, methods, technology and availability. Recently evolved payment systems varied from commodity
transfers, physical financial transactions (traditional payment systems) to virtual payment transactions
(electronic payment systems). Utilizing modern day technologies, electronic payment systems have also
taken various forms in varying environments and societies. Chapter VIII provides a general overview
on electronic payment systems, focusing developing countries and tried to related electronic payment
systems as an enabler of financial empowerment. In this context, this chapter reiterated that by raising
economic activities via electronic means, as a component of e-commerce, could augment the electronic
governance system of a country. It has also put forward available issues, challenges, methods and tools
needed to implement electronic payment systems, especially focusing developing countries.
Chapter IX discusses how a public sector organization made an effort to enhance their collaborative
processes and organizational knowledge base in a specific functional area and how they implemented
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KM-tools to improve knowledge and information sharing and transferal both within the organization
and among partners. The implementation of KM-tools in the crime analysis function as part of intel-
ligence-led policing assisted in preventing more crimes and creating safer communities. The use and
recognition of the benefits of KM-tools also facilitated the development of continuing learning and
education in all the levels and in all the fields and locations of the organization. This chapter aims to
promote knowledge management and KM-tools usage in government and to identify the challenges and
benefits gained by an implementation of analytical solutions. It also describes the managerial and orga-
nizational implications of the usage of analytical solutions and the effects on political decision-making
and government programs.
In the arena of information security and knowledge management, text mining has becoming instru-
mental in extracting pertinent information to create valuable knowledge for more effective knowledge
management. Chapter X addresses various technological applications of text mining in information
systems security (ISS) issues. The techniques are being categorized according to the types of knowl-
edge to be discovered and the text formats to be analyzed. The chapter also focuses on privacy issues of
text mining, which are social aspects of text mining, and also discusses on future trends of text mining
research.
Security, safety and trust are important components of a governance system, and as long as they
are being managed by electronic means, they form quite a potential platform of electronic governance
system. Along these issues, Chapter XI establishes aviation safety as a social service, forming part of
e-governance and introduces a data analysis as an important application area for data mining. In this
chapter, the reader is introduced to the basic concepts of data mining. After that, the field of aviation
safety management is discussed, and in that connection, data mining is identified as a key technology to
study through flight incidents reports. Afterwards the test runs for four data mining products, for prob-
able use in the Finnish civil aviation authority, are described in detail. The chapter ends with conclusions
that tell that even sophisticated data mining tools are just tools: they do not provide any automatic tools,
but skilled users can use them for searching clues in the data.
It is apparent that, electronic government or digital government is not a simple or well-defined theo-
retical concept; rather it is a complex phenomenon, which involves technical, organizational, institutional
and environmental aspects. Researchers from different disciplines are trying to model the E- government
using combinations of various methods from different areas, which can help to deal with complexity
and obtain explanations that are more comprehensive. Chapter XII uses Dynamics Causal Mining as
the technique for modeling and analyze E-government, where Dynamics Causal Mining is a combina-
tion of System Dynamics and Data Mining. This chapter suggests an integration of System Dynamics
and Association Mining for identifying causality and expanding the application area of both techniques.
This gives an improved description of the target system represented by a database; it can also improve
strategy selection and other forms of decision making. The aim is to identify causal factors hidden in
the data and discover the underlying causality between the observed data.
In an effort to follow the new public administration roadmap and invest in the sharing of knowledge,
most of the governmental organizations appear in a crossroad. A lot of knowledge has been created,
organized and even digitized but still it cannot be considered available anywhere, anytime, for any
citizen, business or other organization. Making governmental knowledge available to its beneficiaries
requires the design, development and deployment of a Knowledge Registry, as the platform to cater
for the formal description, composition and publishing of the governmental services canvas. Touching
upon all knowledge management processes from knowledge capture, knowledge sharing, to knowledge
creation, Chapter XIII goes beyond the methodology and tools used for developing such a system for
the Greek Government, to the integration and the diffusion of e-Government knowledge with the help
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of formal ontology definitions - capturing the core elements of the domain together with their main
relationships.
Chapter XIV presents data mining, as a planning and decision support tool for biomass resources
management to produce bio-energy. Furthermore, the chapter has tried to define the decision making
problem for bio-energy production. The Decision Support System, that utilizes a data mining technique,
e.g. clustering, integrated with other group of techniques and tools, such as Genetic Algorithms, Life
Cycle Assessment, Geographical Information System, etc, is presented. Finally, a case study has been
included that shows how to tackle the decision making problem using this technique.
The objective of Chapter XV is to provide an example of a user-friendly interface for knowledge
management and information retrieval, through the use of virtual assistants in E-government applications.
The chapter has also provided a short state of the art on-line virtual assistants technology, highlighting
the knowledge management aspects. Two case studies from the Mexican state of Guanajuato, and the
Federal Government Citizen’s Web Page are being presented and discussed. These case studies provide
new insights into access methods, interfaces and ways to query and present information in e-govern-
ment applications.
There is no doubt that e-government application in public administration and its productive use of
ICTs would improve the interface between respective governments and their citizens in both service
deliveries and provisions of basic needs. However, it is recognized that while there are many benefits
that have been obtained by implementing e-government, there are many sectors of society that are not
part of this growing electronic culture. Perhaps, economics, lack of access to the Internet and other
technologies, low literacy levels and often lack of interest or willingness to use the new technologies,
contributes to a country’s disparities in e-government practices. This way a gap is being created among
the digitally reached and un-reached communities. Chapter XVI seeks to address the digital divide
associated with e-government, which can serve as impediment for application of ICT. As a case study,
the chapter explores the various initiatives that have been undertaken by the Malaysian government to
bridge the digital gap.
Digitization initiatives and knowledge management have become an integral part in the changing
global information society, where knowledge management comprises a range of practices used by
organizations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge. However, digitization initiatives
refer to either jointly or collaborative efforts to translate existing library holdings whether in print,
graphical, audio or combination of all, into digital format commonly known as electronic resources. As
a case study, Chapter XVII discusses the problems of digitization, challenges and future opportunities
for East African university libraries with focus on collaborative efforts and strategies backed up with
policies for investments in ICTs training and integration of ICTs into the core university activities for
effective knowledge management (KM) and information dissemination. It is argued in the chapter that
digitization of library information will add value to more effective university KM, information access
and use in multidisciplinary fields including local content.
Finally, as a case of social and political implications of data mining, Chapter XVIII put forwards
application of data mining techniques in public sector administration. In the public sector, data mining
was used as a means to detect fraud and waste, but in time it emerges as a measuring tool and means for
improving program performance. This chapter discusses on issues like, improving services or perfor-
mance, helping customer relations management, managing human resources, and detecting fraud, waste
and abuse in the public sector administration. It also discusses on analysis of scientific and research
information, detection of criminal activities, and detection of terrorist activities in public administration
before providing future research directions on predictive analysis and diversity of data mining applica-
tion domains.
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Conclusion
The growing interest of contemporary researchers in data mining is motivated by a common problem
across multifaceted disciplines, as how does one store, access, model, and ultimately illustrate and under-
stand very large data sets? Historically, different aspects of data mining have been addressed by diverse
disciplines. But, as a truly interdisciplinary text on data mining with social and political implications
focusing knowledge management in e-government, blending the contributions of information science,
computer science, social science, knowledge management, ontology, and algorithms deserves further
studies and researches (Hand, Mannila & Smyth, 2001; Han & Kamber, 2005).
As unique its name carries, the book incorporates methodical and pragmatic research outcomes in
the aspect of data mining accommodating socio-political interests. Implementation of knowledge based
e-government plan to reach common citizens through ICT mediated techniques, especially utilizing
data mining modus operandi may be directed toward the key target audiences, as such the community
people. But, they would include decision-makers and policy initiators; the general public; industry and
service communities; scientific and technical communities; academics; government and non-govern-
mental organizations; public interest advocacy groups; civil society advocacy groups, donor agencies
and development partners and international financial institutions.
In addition to these, as researches revealed data mining is the process of automatic discovery of pat-
terns, transformations, associations and anomalies in massive databases, and is a highly interdisciplinary
field representing the confluence of multiple disciplines, such as database systems, data warehousing,
machine learning, statistics, algorithms, data visualization, and high-performance computing (COMP
290, 2003). Utilizing data mining techniques with social and political implications to improve e-gover-
nance require methodical knowledge management. Furthermore, knowledge management is desirable
to facilitate information exchange and transaction processing with citizens, as well as to enable inter-
government knowledge sharing and integration.
However, the core content generators (data generators) are the appropriate knowledge systems that
connect people to reach other despite barriers of time, geography, culture, literacy, and even ownership
of a telephone or computer or Internet. Therefore, broader audiences of this book will widely vary from
individuals, researchers, scientists, academics, politicians, students, librarians, journalists and develop-
ment practitioners. Finally, this book will generate tremendous impetus in terms of knowledge-based
research initiations, thus will have highly acceptable scholarly value and at the same time potentially
contribute to this very specific sector of research.
REFERENCES
Chen, S.Y. & Liu, X. (2005). Data mining from 1994 to 2004: an application-orientated review, Inter-
national Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining, Vol.1: 4-21(18).
COMP 290 (2003). Research Seminar theme of Data Mining: Concepts, Algorithms, and Applications.
Department of Computer Science, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC.
DIG White Paper (1995). An Overview of Data Mining at Dun and Bradstreet, Data Intelligence Group,
Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., USA.
Hand, D.J., Mannila, H. & Smyth, P. (2001). Principles of Data Mining (Adaptive Computation and
Machine Learning). The MIT Press (August 1, 2001)
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xxv
Chaterjee, J. (2005). Using Data Mining for Business Intelligence, Retrieved June 15, 2008 from http://
www.aspfree.com/c/a/MS-SQL-Server/Using-Data-Mining-for-Business-Intelligence/
Han, J. & Kamber, M. (2005). Data Mining : Concepts and Techniques, Second Edition, The Morgan
Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems, Morgan Kaufmann; November 3, 2005
Mueller, J.P (2004). Mining Amazon Web Services: Building Applications with the Amazon, Sybex,
January 23, 2004
SIAM (2006). Excerpts from the 2006 SIAM Conference on Data Mining, Society for Industrial and
Applied Mathematics (SIAM), April 20, 2006 – April 22, 2006, Bethesda, MD, USA.
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Acknowledgment
I am pleased to acknowledge the support from all involved in the entire accretion of manuscripts, review
process, revision and finalization of the book, without which the project could not have been satisfactorily
completed. I am highly grateful to all the authors who provided their relentless and generous assistance,
but reviewers who were most helpful and provided inclusive, thorough and creative comments are, Arla
Juntunen, Shamsul Chowdhury and Paola Annoni. Thanks go to my close friends and colleagues at SDNF
and ICMS for their wholehearted encouragements during the entire process.
Special thanks also go to the dedicated publishing team at Idea Group, Inc. Particularly to Jessica
Thompson, Julia Mosemann, Heather Probst and Joel Gamon for their continuous suggestions, relentless
supports and timely feedbacks via e-mail for keeping the project on schedule, and to Mehdi Khosrow-
Pour and Jan Travers for their enduring professional guides. Finally, I would like to thank my family
members for their love and support throughout this period.
Hakikur Rahman, PhD
ICMS, Bangladesh
August 2008
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Section I
Content Management and
Knowledge Management
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Chapter I
A Conceptual Framework for
Data Mining and Knowledge
Management
Shamsul I. Chowdhury
Roosevelt University, USA
Abstract
Over the last decade data warehousing and data mining tools have evolved from research into a unique
and popular applications, ranging from data warehousing and data mining for decision support to busi-
ness intelligence and other kind of applications. The chapter presents and discusses data warehousing
methodologies along with the main components of data mining tools and technologies and how they
all could be integrated together for knowledge management in a broader sense. Knowledge manage-
ment refers to the set of processes developed in an organization to create, extract, transfer, store and
apply knowledge. The chapter also focuses on how data mining tools and technologies could be used in
extracting knowledge from large databases or data warehouses. Knowledge management increases the
ability of an organization to learn from its environment and to incorporate knowledge into the business
processes by adapting to new tools and technologies. Knowledge management is also about the reus-
ability of the knowledge that is being extracted and stored in the knowledge base. One way to improve the
reusability is to use this knowledge base as front-ends to case-based reasoning (CBR) applications. The
chapter further focuses on the reusability issues of knowledge management and presents an integrated
framework for knowledge management by combining data mining (DM) tools and technologies with
CBR methodologies. The purpose of the integrated framework is to discover, validate, retain, reuse and
share knowledge in an organization with its internal users as well as its external users. The framework
is independent of application domain and would be suitable for uses in areas, such as data mining and
knowledge management in e-government.
Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
INTRODUCTION resources as an organizational asset. The data
quality is also an important aspect in the process.
People have been collecting and organizing data The following topics have been addressed:
from stone ages. In the earlier days data were col-
lected and recorded in one way or the other mainly • DW methodology
for record keeping purposes. With the advance- • DW data modeling
ment in computational technology in general and • DW data quality issues
storage technology in particular data collection • DM – techniques and uses
and their storage in large data warehouses have • DM and Business intelligence – From find-
become an integral part of the data processing ings to application
and decision-making environment of today’s • DM and CBR (Case-based Reasoning) for
organizations. Over time people have learned to knowledge retention and reuse.
value data as an important asset.
Reliable data in a database or a data warehouse The work falls into the category of content man-
could be used for decision-making purposes by agement of data from database/data warehouse
appropriately analyzing the data and making using data mining and other intelligent techniques
them more meaningful and useful. In other words like expert system, CBR, etc. The purpose is to
data could be analyzed to find hidden patterns make the extracted knowledge available to the
and foresee trends. The process is broadly being users (both internal and external) in organiza-
called data mining. tions of different structure and forms, including
Data mining usually starts with a hypothesis e-government. In e-government one of the most
or an assumption and ultimately creates new in- important benefits would be citizen empowerment
formation or knowledge. In order to survive and through access to information/knowledge (The
succeed in the tough business world of today it World Bank Group 2008).
is also very important to store and manage the In the work the term business and customer
evolving knowledge within an organization. has been used in a broader sense. By business and
Knowledge management is the overall activities customer is meant the core activities that take place
of creating, storing, re-using and sharing the new and the consumer of information respectively in
knowledge. Knowledge management increases an organization.
the ability of an organization to learn from its
environment and to incorporate knowledge into
the business processes by adapting to new tools Background
and technologies, for example; data warehousing,
data mining and case-based reasoning. Over the years data warehousing and data mining
The chapter presents the necessary funda- tools have evolved into a unique and popular busi-
mentals of data warehousing (DW), data mining ness solutions to attain business understanding
(DM) (methodology, tools, techniques, systems and decision-making. Decision makers already
and terminology) and related technologies. One consider these systems to be the corner stone in
of the purposes of the chapter is to develop and their IT system portfolio. Data and the knowledge
gain an understanding of the principles, concepts, derived from the data and sharing them within
functions and uses of data warehousing and data an enterprise and its business partners and col-
mining for knowledge management in a broader laborators is a key success factor in today’s com-
sense. Data modeling in data warehousing plays plex business world, and hence flexible tools are
a vital role in successful utilization of the data needed to deal with the evolving complexities.
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
Different business solutions need to be derived The top-down also known as Inmon’s approach
to cope with the ever-changing business need. focuses on the data warehouse as the nerve cen-
Furthermore, Business problems and solutions ter of the entire analytic environment. This is a
not only affect people within an organization, multi-tier environment consisting of dependent
but also other people outside the organization, data marts (smaller subject-specific warehouses)
like customers and suppliers (Chan, Witte and that use a dimensional model. This approach may
Chowdhury, 2004). Data and related technology or may not use an initial staging area depending
for data access, analysis and delivery are the driv- on the amount of data involved.
ing factors in data warehousing. It is implemented The bottom-up also known as Kimball’s ap-
to attain competitive advantage and is a valuable proach focuses on delivering business value by
core competency (Atre, 2003a; Montalbano and deploying dimensional data marts as quickly as
Chowdhury, 2006). Data warehousing is not a possible. In the hybrid approach both the top-
destination – it is a journey and projects as such down and bottom-up theories are combined. In
should be treated as continuous projects where this design, the enterprise and data mart models
newer and newer functionalities are being added are developed simultaneously.
incrementally (Lawyer and Chowdhury, 2005). Finally, in the federated approach guidelines,
A well designed data warehouse with all procedures, and best practices of building a data
needed data is helpful in answering relevant ques- warehouse are identified and outlined, and the
tions, for example; for better customer relationship focus is on doing whatever is necessary to deliver
management (CRM). The importance of rela- an analytical environment (for data mining) to
tionship marketing and the use of CRM systems meet the changing needs of the business, for
as a valuable tool for retaining customers have example; improved customer service.
been well recognized by decision makers (Chan, There are considerable philosophical debates,
Witte and Chowdhury, 2004). In e-government obstacles, and pros and cons as to the selection
the purpose of data warehousing would be to of a data warehousing methodology (Lawyer and
centralize all relevant data and make them acces- Chowdhury, 2005). However, the method chosen
sible to the population in a timely and convenient must meet business requirements, and be flexible
manner. In fact, organizations have been building and scalable. In other words the methodology
data warehouses centralizing organizational data must minimize the gaps between the business
since the early 1990’s and still there is a lack of processes and the technology that are being used
common agreement regarding the appropriate to run the business in the organization. In the next
design and architecture for a data warehouse section, discussions will be limited to the bottom-
(Chowdhury, 2005; Inmon, 2002; 2004). Idea up (Ralph Kimball’s) approach commonly know
behind a data warehouse is to centralize company as dimensional data modeling for creating a data
wide information to create and deliver the nec- warehouse (Kimball and Ross, 2002) with some
essary analytical environment (for data mining explanatory examples.
or knowledge discovery) to meet the changing
needs of business. A data warehouse environ-
ment could be implemented using any of the four Data Warehouse Data
main existing approaches, namely (Agosta, 2005; Modeling
Breslin, 2004; Fang and Tuladhar, 2006): i. the
top-down, ii. the bottom-up, iii. the hybrid and An Entity Relationship (ER) diagram is the back-
iv. the federated approach. bone for implementing a transaction-oriented
relational database application to run the day-to-
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
day operation of the business usually known as 2002; Gillenson, 2005). Figure 1 presents an ER
on-line transaction processing (OLTP) system. model of NorthWind Traders OLTP system. The
These types of system rely on a relational database ER model contains eight entities (tables) that are
that must efficiently update highly normalized, related with one another and the model also shows
referentially integrated tables based on an ER the type of relationship in between the entities.
model. As an example of an ER model let us take For example, the type of relationship in between
the case of the hypothetical NorthWind Traders suppliers and products is of type 1: N (many) and so
Database implemented in MS ACCESS2003 re- on (Alley et. al, 2006; Chowdhury, 2005; 2006).
lational DBMS (Alley et. al, 2006). NorthWind Star or dimensional modeling is used for
Trading Company is a business-to-business (B2B) implementing data warehouses. In a Star model
enterprise and stocks 77 products from 29 sup- a central fact table is surrounded by a set of di-
pliers in 8 categories of food-related products. In mension tables (Figure 2). There are two main
8 quarters, the company has received 830 orders arguments in favor of Star models: i. they are easy
from 91 customers around the world through 9 em- for business people to understand and use, and ii.
ployees during the last two years. The firm shipped retrieval performance is usually effective (Tod-
these orders by using 3 shipping companies. The man, 2001). Moreover, Star Model has replaced
company’s OLTP system employs an entity rela- ER diagramming as the most effective choice for
tionship (ER) model to process transactional data. data warehouse design (Jukic, 2006; Kimball and
Uses of this model help eliminate redundancies Ross, 2002; Sen and Sinha, 2005).
and contribute to data integrity, completeness, Three approaches are generally in use for star
and consistency in the OLTP system (Kroenke, modeling (Chenoweth et al, 2003; Chowdhury,
Figure 1. An example of an ER model
Suppliers Products O rderDetails O rders
PK S upplierID PK ProductID PK ,F K2 O rderID PK O rderID
1:N PK ,F K1 ProductID N :1
Com panyNam e ProductNam e FK 1 Custom erID
ContactNam e FK 1 SupplierID UnitPrice FK 2 Em ployeeID
1:N
ContactTitle FK 2 CategoryID Q uantity O rderDate Custom ers
Address Q uantityPerUnit Discount RequiredDate
City UnitPrice ShippedDate PK CustomerID
Region UnitsInStock FK 3 ShipperID
PostalCode UnitsO nO rder Freight N:1 Com panyNam e
Country ReorderLevel ShipNam e ContactNam e
Phone Discontinued ShipAddress ContactTitle
Fax ShipCity Address
Hom ePage ShipRegion City
Em ployees 1:N ShipPostalCode Region
PK EmployeeID ShipCountry PostalCode
Country
LastNam e Phone
FirstNam e Fax
Categories Title
TitleO fCourtesy
1 :N
PK CategoryID BirthDate
1:N
HireDate
CategoryNam e Address
Description City
Pictures Region Shippers
PostalCode
Country PK ShipperID
Hom ePhone
Extension Com panyNam e
Photo Phone
Notes
ReportsTo
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
2007a; 2007c; Sperley, 1999): i. development by model of the NorthWind Traders database and
modification, for example; buy a home that is formulate a set of critical questions, which are
constructed and knock some walls to add new important for the success and survival of the
walls, etc. ii. development from template, for hypothetical NorthWind enterprise. The JAD
example; buy some existing home plans and has team comprised business expertise, IT expertise
a house built to the plans or a modified version and also members who were familiar with DBMS
of the plans and iii. full custom development, ACCESS and NorthWind Trading database. The
for example; contact an architect and start from list of critical questions as perceived by the JAD
scratch. team is summarized in Table 1.
In development by modification the existing The conversion process can take a good
ER model is modified and reorganized in the amount of discussion in the form of JAD sessions
form of a Star model by deleting the operational for a correct determination of the information
information and adding more of decision making the system should provide. Planning is the key
information to accommodate the decision making to successful design and could likely involve a
needs of the business. few iterations before the converted model could
Modification or conversion of the ER diagram be accepted. The model that emerges from this
to a star schema is a step-by-step process and conversion forms the Star model showing rela-
usually begins with a conversation between end tionship between entities.
users and IT professionals to discover a list of The resulting Star model proposed and imple-
burning or critical business questions. This list mented by the team member in the project to find
consists of a set of analytical problems that deci- answers to their burning questions are presented
sion makers feel are important success factors to below in Figure 2.
the future direction of the business. During the conversion the JAD team also fol-
Data modeling is as much art as science; many lowed useful guidelines based on the Ten Com-
possibilities may exist for a successful conversion mandments of Dimensional Data Modeling. The
to Star models. To understand and explain the ten commandments summarizes as to what needs
processes, this research has formed a JAD (Joint to be done for a successful and useful conversion
Application Development) team to study the ER (Chowdhury, 2006). The team followed them
Table 1. Critical business questions
Critical business questions Why they are important?
1. How can the company analyze sales by quan- This question is a very important one to ask because it will enable one to under-
tity based on region and time? stand the overall performance of the company.
2. What are the top and bottom 5% of products This may be one of the most important questions that any business should ask.
sold over time and region? A company should keep record of the fluctuation of sales per product category
per year to understand the trends of when these items are purchased and where
they are purchased.
3. Who are the top 10% of the customer base over A business should know its top customer and try to retain them by establishing
time and category? good relationship with them.
4. Which employees are most productive related Here the question is to understand employee performance, which is valuable to
to sales, time, product, and region? compare the sales per employee for product, region and time. For example, a
company sometimes may want to provide incentives to the top employee, which
encourages the sales force to increase their performance.
5. What suppliers deliver the best-selling prod- The business also should know their top selling products and their suppliers.
ucts?
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
into practical realization in the form of teamwork The resulting Star model (Figure 2) reduces the
and has been described elsewhere (Chowdhury, number of tables from eight (in the ER diagram
2005; 2007a). – Figure 1) to seven by removing the Categories,
The approach taken in the JAD team was Order Details, and Orders tables and replaces
based on lessons learned in research and teaching them to form a Sales Fact table, and Time dimen-
practices in the field for many years. Development sion table, which simplified the model. A great
by modification was found to be useful and is benefit of this star diagram is that the diagram
becoming a common acceptable (best) practice includes a new table called Time (dimension) and
for star modeling. Success with this approach this table includes facts such as the day, month,
depends on factors, such as: the ER models are year, quarter, and time, which can be very helpful
relatively new, well designed and normalized; the when using as a reference to a sale.
IT staff (for the new DW project) is very familiar The next step in the process is to populate
with the source system OLTP models; the IT staff the star model with data (from source system/s)
also understands the data that is already in the and test it by making sql queries/data mining
database; and many data warehouse reference to validate that the model satisfy the informa-
and fact tables are already in the OLTP model in tion requirement of the enterprise by providing
a different form. answers to the critical business questions. The
usefulness and effectiveness of the star model
Figure 2. A Star model
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
depends on how accurately it has addressed the This research has addressed and examined
Ten Commandments of Star Modeling (Alley et. the aspects of ensuring data quality in a data
al, 2006; Chowdhury, 2005; Garcia, Janjua, and warehouse by utilizing mainly a revised process
Galvan, 2006;. Rieger, 2006). flow model (Chowdhury, 2005; 2007b; Sperley,
1999). The purpose was to recommend the suit-
ability and usability of the process flow model
DW data quality issues for ensuring quality data in data warehouses. The
ultimate goal was to recommend a methodology
Data quality is a key issue when an organization for the highest possible data quality in a data
implements an enterprise wide data warehouse, warehouse. The research came to the following
for example for customer relationship manage- findings:
ment (CRM) or other purposes. Utilizing CRM
requires that customer information be of high • The first step in the data quality improve-
quality, in order to identify, validate and consoli- ment program needs to discover where data
date customers within an organization. Quality quality problems exist in the source systems.
of the data will determine the quality of the data When sources for problems are identified,
warehouse as well as the quality of the decision- methods must be developed to improve data
making. In other words data quality is an invest- quality.
ment in future. Data warehouses allow firms to • Data quality improvement should be a
learn more about their customers so that they can continuous process. The sooner the process
develop strategies to maximize services, profits starts the better are the chances to have
and minimize cost. Some of the characteristics quality data. Data quality improvement
of data warehouse data are that (Chowdhury, program may be started prior to building a
2005; Laudon and Laudon, 2004): data warehouse.
• It has also been observed that people, collect-
• The data is subject oriented, meaning it ing and recording data must be trained and
comes from different sources including well motivated to do a good job. Business
external sources, and other data should be carefully gathered
• The data is integrated, and recorded as it is being done in the field
• The data is non-volatile, meaning it is not of medicine.
changed,
• The data is time variant, meaning it is time
stamped, Data Mining vs. Knowledge
• The data must be of high quality, meaning Discovery in Databases (KDD)
the data is error-free,
• The data is aggregated or summarized, Data mining is a process that uses statistical,
• The data is often de-normalized to make mathematical, artificial intelligence and machine-
queries run quicker, and learning techniques to extract and identify useful
• The data is not necessarily absolutely cur- information and subsequent knowledge from large
rent, meaning it does not have the most databases (Berry and Linoff, 2004). The main
current piece of information. To get the steps in the process are shown in Table 2.
most current piece of information, the data Knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) is
has to be refreshed more often. a comprehensive process of using data mining
methods to find useful information and patterns in
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
Table 2. Data mining vs. knowledge discovery
Main Data Mining Steps Steps in Knowledge Discovery in Data bases (KDD)
Data preparation Selection (of data)
Defining a study Preprocessing or cleansing
Reading the data and building a model Transformation or conversion
Understanding your model Data mining (selecting data mining methods and performing the mining)
Prediction Interpretation/evaluation
data. KDD is a multi-disciplinary field of research, • Discovery-driven data mining: Finds pat-
which includes machine learning, statistics, da- terns, associations, and relationships among
tabase technology, expert systems (ES) and data the data in order to uncover facts that were
visualization. KDD steps are shown in Table-2. previously unknown or not even contem-
If the definitions and the different steps are plated by an organization. This category
compared in DM and KDD, some commonali- uses a data driven approach.
ties can be seen, as well as certain differences.
In KDD, data mining is being considered as one Moreover, data mining is useful for:
step in the processes. In other words Knowledge
discovery is the whole process and in it Data • Classification: Supervised induction used
Mining is the discovery stage. The KDD process to analyze the historical data stored in a
involves evaluation, and possibly interpretation database and to automatically generate a
of patterns extracted by data mining to decide model that can predict future behavior
which subsets of patterns constitute knowledge. • Clustering: Partitioning a database into
Data mining also requires significant data ”pre- segments in which the members of a seg-
processing”, choice of algorithms, and assumes ment share similar qualities
information ”post-processing”. Even though there • Association: A category of data mining al-
are differences between DM and KDD, often DM gorithm that establishes relationships about
is used as a synonym for KDD in the literatures. items that occur together in a given record
In this work, that convention was followed. Over • Sequence discovery: The identification of
the years the differences between them are getting associations over time
blurred (smaller and smaller). Alternative names • Visualization: used in conjunction with data
used in the past are data archaeology, data dredg- mining to gain a clearer understanding of
ing (badly done), functional dependency analysis many underlying relationships.
and data harvesting (Desai and Chowdhury, 2003;
Chowdhury, 2005). However, a good tool may accommodate both
In these contexts, data mining could broadly these approaches. With increased sophistication in
be classified into two broad categories (Turban, data collection and storage facilities, data driven
Aronson and Liang, 2005): form of data mining is becoming more common.
Available data mining tools offer a wide variety of
• Hypothesis-driven data mining: Begins algorithms. The most common are decision trees,
with a proposition by the user, who then artificial neural networks, regression analysis,
seeks to validate the truthfulness of the genetic algorithm, Bayesian belief networks.
proposition. This category of data mining DM tools and technologies have evolved dur-
may use a model-driven approach. ing the last decade and now are extensively been
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
used by different organizations. The strength help to the users in the process of analytical
of today’s DM tools and technologies is due to design and choose an appropriate statistical tech-
– increasing computing power, improved data nique/algorithm relevant to the data and provide
collection, statistical and learning algorithm help in conducting the analysis/data mining. The
and also advances in user’s interface design. A user may be an expert in his or her domain (for
general methodology for data mining is given in example business, medicine, economics, politics,
Figure-3. This research has implemented a system e-governance, etc.) but may not be familiar with
based on the above framework and it was proven statistical know how to design and conduct an
successful in mining data from a large database analysis. The system would also support the
described elsewhere (Chowdhury, 1990; 2005). user to conduct data driven data mining, where
Most data mining tools of today use a similar analytical model building is not necessary.
framework. The outcome of the statistical analysis needs to
With the help of the system as depicted in be validated before it could be incorporated into
Figure-3 a user with his/her domain specific the knowledge base. For a successful validation
knowledge would be able to create an analytical of a data material, one need knowledge in three
model from the existing data repository. Once different contexts, namely: data context, statisti-
the user accepts the analytical model the system cal/methodological context, domain context. The
can help with the statistical analysis/data min- data context utilizes some general knowledge of
ing. Statistical expertise is incorporated in SES the data and application domain to transform or
(Statistical Expert System) to provide necessary structure the data into a model, which could be
Figure 3. A Data mining framework: supporting both model and data driven approaches
Knowledge base
SES = Statistical
Expert System
SES
User
(domain expert) SP
SP = Statistical
DM Tool
Package
Analytical
model
DBMS:
DB/DW
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
statistical or analytical and conduct the analysis. ment (for data mining or knowledge discovery)
The domain context, in addition to the above, to meet the changing needs of business (Atre,
should have more deep and specific knowledge 2003b; Montalbano and Chowdhury, 2006) .
of the application domain to be able to interpret Data warehouse data can be compared with the
the results appropriately and draw conclusions metaphor of the crystal river with its pure life-
from the statistical analysis. giving water, which always reflects the stone over
which it flows. Similarly data warehouse data
would reflect the organizational activities (Desai
DM and Business intelligence and Chowdhury, 2003). Business must treat user
data with the same care that physicians apply to
Current trends in today’s complex business envi- patient information (Chowdhury, 2006).
ronment include collecting and analyzing informa- Business intelligence system can best be
tion regarding customers, products, and processes defined as a broad category of applications and
in order to increase profit and reduce expenses. technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and
Businesses are gathering and analyzing these data providing access to data to help enterprise users
by implementing various systems to make up a make better business decisions. BI applications
suite of Business Intelligence System. Business include the activities of decision support systems,
intelligence (BI) is a conceptual framework for query and reporting, online analytical processing
decision support. A BI architecture would include (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting and data
databases (or data warehouses), analytical tools, mining (Berry and Linoff, 2004; Turban, Aronson
applications and methodologies. The purpose is and Liang, 2005).
to enhance data into information and then into
knowledge to be able to address business issues
and concern successfully. The steps can be sum- Data Mining and CBR
marized in the following scheme:
CBR (Case-based Reasoning) has been defined
Data --> Information -- > Understanding --> as an artificial intelligence technique for learning
Knowledge --> Business (Process) Intelligence and reasoning from experiences. It is a technol-
ogy for solving new problems by adapting the
From the steps above, it is seen that the data known solutions of previous similar problems. In
needs to be analyzed, validated and interpreted CBR the knowledge gained over time is related
to gain an understanding and increase our knowl- to specific cases to form a case-base. Cases are
edge, which could be utilized to address relevant situation-specific knowledge, stored in a struc-
business situation. tured base (case database or case-base) together
BI is carried out to gain sustainable competi- with the necessary general knowledge (Chan and
tive advantage and is a valuable core competence Chowdhury, 2005; Chowdhury, 2005; Laudon and
in today’s complex world. BI needs access to Laudon, 2004; Sankar, Pal, and Shiu 2004).
combined and centralized business data/informa- A new problem is solved by trying to describe
tion. Data warehousing is being used by many what the problem is. This description is then
organizations as a way to pull all related data used to retrieve old cases from the case database.
together in order to successfully answer relevant The retrieved case is compared with the new
business questions. Idea behind a data warehouse case to reuse the previously gained knowledge.
is to centralize company wide information to cre- This process creates a suggested solution to the
ate and deliver the necessary analytical environ- problem, which is compared with the real world
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
example and tested. During this revision, useful tions and possible solutions or a methodology
experience from the test is added and forms a to derive a solution). Searching after cases
new tested solution. This tested solution gives a from the case-base that are similar to a
confirmed solution, which is then retained in the present case. An index mechanism supports
case database as a new case (Laudon and Laudon efficient retrieval.
2006) . The problem solving steps have been ii. Adjusting the earlier solution to the present
schematically represented in Figure-4. situation;
iii. Validating the adjusted solution; and
Case-Bases iv. Updating the case base. If the solution is
valid it is saved in the case base for future
Usually a database contains one type of informa- use.
tion, i.e., the facts or problem descriptions. In a
case-base each case contains at least two types DM and CBR technologies can be combined
of information: i. facts, describing a problem together into an integrated knowledge manage-
situation and also ii. a solution, or a methodology ment framework for attaining BI by performing
to derive a solution. In other words the problem data mining and retaining the BI by using CRR
description together with the solution makes a technology (Chowdhury, 2005a). A framework
case – a complete story (Chowdhury, 2001; 2005; for integration is presented in Figure-5. System
2007d; Sankar, Pal, and Shiu 2004). Case-bases implemented based on the framework would help
can be developed, maintained and updated in to acquire new knowledge through iterations of
four steps. analysis and operations (data mining). Further
the knowledge that is being discovered/captured
i. Building a well-organized database of cases by performing extensive analysis would be rep-
(usually called a case-base), which contains resented, retained and reused by employing CBR
description of earlier cases (problem descrip- technology to solve future problems. In other
Figure 4. Steps in a CBR system development cycle
Case-base
Old existing solutions New solution/s
and possible ii. Adaptation and
explanations iii. Validation
Old problems New problem/s
i.Retrieval of
similar cases from
case-base
iv. Update and maintain the case-base
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
words the knowledge (discovered and stored by by generating solutions to specific problems that
the DM part – Figure-5) in knowledge base would are too massive and complex to be analyzed by
be used as a front-end by the CBR technology human beings in a short period of time.
component (Figure-5) to create reusable CBR
applications.
Data mining is used to support the acquisition FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
of knowledge from databases. DM integrated
with CBR (Figure 5) can be viewed as a general Over the years, data warehousing grew from a
knowledge management and also a problem- simple reporting database to an analytic applica-
solving tool. Knowledge Management is also tion that provide static information to help users
the practice of treating knowledge as a corporate track trends, including profitability analysis, sales
asset. Knowledge assets are equally important forecasting, customer segmentation, financial
for competitive advantage and survival as physi- and other form of analyses. However, this static
cal and financial assets (Desai and Chowdhury, information does not provide end-users with
2003). Data mining and CBR can be seen as the most recent information in order to perform
complimentary methodologies and integration business analyses on real-time or near real-time
of the two would help to implement powerful data. This lack of information is because of the
and reusable systems for better knowledge man- batch mode process (extract, transform and load)
agement as well as to address future problems that provides a snapshot of information reflecting
(Chowdhury and Chan, 2007). One of the key the data at the time the last file was loaded. As a
benefits of combining DM with CBR would result of this time delay in information, the avail-
be to enhance organization’s knowledge base able data is not sufficient to respond to current
business situations (Galvan, 2006).
Figure 5. An integrated framework for knowledge management
Knowledge base
SES = Statistical
Expert System
SES
User Case-base
SP = Statistical SP (domain expert) (Using CBR
Package
technology)
DM Tool
Analytical
model
DBMS:
DB/DW
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
To take DW, DM and KM to the next level, future problems. CBR is an artificial intelligence
it will be necessary for a business to alter their technology that uses previous knowledge from
strategy to include at least near real-time (NRT) solved problems in order to give suggestions to the
update of the data in a data warehouse. Access solution of new problems. In CBR, descriptions
to more current information from the source of previous expert experiences are represented
system would empower end-users. It would al- as cases in a knowledge base, new problems are
low them to increase the speed and accuracy of solved by adapting to solutions of similar cases
analytic and strategic business decisions based in the past (Chowdhury, 2005).
on information across departments, enterprises Therefore, data mining is considered to be
and external systems. As a result, users would one of the ten most important technologies, in
be able to generate timely and relevant reports terms of the potential impact on wide-range of
across all data facets of an organization (Agosta, scientific, economic, socio-political and diverse
2005; Galvan , 2006). Future directions of research other applications. Data mining focuses on the
would be to study how best the real-time or the process of discovering knowledge while CBR
near-real time update could be accommodated in focuses on the management and application of
the proposed framework. knowledge through representation, retrieval, re-
use, revision and retention of case knowledge.
However, knowledge management has not been
Discussion central to data mining research so far. Data
mining combined with CBR could be viewed as
One of the main focuses of the chapter has been a general knowledge management and problem-
the presentation of an integrated framework for solving tool. The resulting benefits could be better
data mining with other related technologies. In the management of resources, greater efficiency and
framework DM has been seen as a link between growth (Chan and Chowdhury, 2005).
DW and CBR. Further DM is not an end in itself.
The knowledge gained and business intelligence
attained by using DW and DM could be retained References
and reused by using CBR technology. It is the
technology based on AI for solving new problems Agosta, Lou. (2005). Data Warehousing Lessons
by adapting the known solutions of previous Learned: Hub-and-Spoke Architecture Favored.
similar problems. DM Review, March 2005.
Data mining and CBR can be seen as compli-
Alley, M., Alonso, PJ., Womack, C & Yao, Y.
mentary methodologies for knowledge manage-
(2006). Star or Dimensional Modeling. Assign-
ment in a broader sense. DM tools can help us
ment in Data Warehousing and Data Mining,
extensively to learn and gain knowledge from the
Term Paper, WEHCBA, Roosevelt University,
data sets. Still the reusability of the knowledge
Summer 2006.
that is being extracted/gained is not very com-
mon. One way to improve the reusability is to Atre, S. (2003a). The Top 10 Critical Challenges for
use this knowledge base as front-ends to CBR Business Intelligence Success; Computerworld;
applications. June 30, 2003.
In other words DM tools and technologies need
Atre, S. (2003b). Business Intelligence Success is
to be integrated with CBR tools and technologies
Never an Accident; Computerworld; September
to reuse the knowledge in addressing identical
15, 2003.
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A Conceptual Framework for Data Mining and Knowledge Management
Berry, M.J.A. & Linoff G.S. (2004). Data Mining Intelligence. presented at the MBAA (Midwest
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Sciences (ASBBS) conference, 2004.
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Modeling - A Methodology, Paper accepted for
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Chowdhury, S. (2007d). Trends in Database Tools
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Technology. Dissertations No. 240, Linköping
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University.
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Information System) Conference, 2001.
Desai, N. and Chowdhury, S. (2003). Data Min-
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pp62-71, Spring 2003.
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Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges, Technology Society) International Transactions
pp. 137-144. on Computer Science and Engineering, Paper
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No. 1. Nov. 2005.
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and Data Mining, Roosevelt University, summer Montalbano, J.P & Chowdhury, S.I. (2006).
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erations. Paper published in the Proceedings of
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the MBAA-SAIS (Midwest Business Administra-
wind Traders Star Schema Model. Assignment in
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Hall.
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in GESTS (Global Engineering, Science and
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16
Chapter II
A Framework for Knowledge
Management in E-Government
Kostas Metaxiotis
National Technical University of Athens, Greece
INTRODUCTION and structures for harnessing the potentialities of
information and communication technologies at
E-government, driven by an ever-increasing and various levels of government and the public sector
pervasive use of information and communication for the purpose of enhancing good governance.
technologies, is affecting the public sector more The key issues in transformation are the adop-
and more (Bannister, 2005; Eyob, 2004; Metaxi- tion and uptake of interoperable standards, the
otis & Psarras, 2004). Many governments across development of appropriate business models, the
the globe have resorted to instituting e-govern- legal and policy frameworks that will facilitate
ment initiatives as a way of better positioning integration, and governance arrangements that
themselves in the Information Age (Information support both enterprise responsibilities and cross-
for Development Programme [InfoDev], 2004), agency approaches and responsibilities.
or seem at least to be showing commitments in On the other hand, in order to gain competi-
redressing the imbalances resulting from the low tive advantage for their survival, most of the large
utilization of knowledge resources and ICT in the companies in the private sector have been actively
economy and governance (Joi, 2004). E-govern- taking initiatives to adopt new management tools,
ment is enabling government organizations to techniques, and philosophies. Governments al-
provide better services to their constituents. The ways follow suit. History shows that most of the
ability to improve citizens’ access to services has management philosophies were first practiced in
made e-government an attractive investment for large companies; once they gained foot in the field,
government organizations, fueling worldwide they became adopted in other sectors. Enterprise
implementation of such applications (Amaravadi, resource planning (ERP), business process reen-
2005; Scherlis & Eisenberg, 2003). As an emerging gineering (BPR), and total quality management
practice, e-government seeks to realize processes (TQM) are indicative examples. Now comes the
Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
A Framework for Knowledge Management in E-Government
turn of knowledge management (KM). Govern- possible application of KM in the public sector,
ments are now realizing the importance of KM none have focused on the application of KM in
to their policy making and service delivery to the e-government; this is done in this chapter. In this
public, and some of the government departments chapter, the author, recognizing the importance
are beginning to put KM high on their agenda. of e-government and KM to devolve into the
Public administrations are knowledge-inten- public administration sector, continues his pre-
sive organizations. They host a particularly high vious research related to the application of KM
percentage of professionals and specialized staff in e-government (Metaxiotis & Psarras, 2005),
who command important domains of knowl- discusses key issues, and presents a framework
edge. This is particularly the case in ministerial for the application of KM in e-government as a
departments and in the judiciary and regulatory basis for future research.
agencies. Many public organizations are chiefly
“intelligence organizations” where human actors
cooperate in order to store and process informa- KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN
tion and to produce information output for further E-GOVERNMENT: BACKGROUND
use. If we ask the question, “How does the public
administration know what it knows?” it becomes While literature on KM has been addressing is-
immediately evident that even though there is sues, challenges, and opportunities for the private
indeed a lot of knowledge in the organizations, sector, little has been discussed for the public sec-
it is not necessarily available anywhere, anytime tor, and even less in e-government. Frank (2002)
for anybody. Not all parts of a public organization reported that several e-government initiatives in
or even citizens can necessarily benefit from that USA are using knowledge management principles
knowledge. This means that a lot of “wheel rein- as the way to knock down the stovepipes that keep
venting” is going on in public administration. government from operating as efficiently as it
Not only does the trend toward the knowledge could….The idea of “collect once, use many” is
society call for KM solutions (Davenport & Pru- a common theme in several of the 24 e-govern-
sak, 1998; Metaxiotis, Ergazakis, & Psarras, 2005; ment initiatives led by the Office of Management
Wiig, 1993) but also current e-government devel- and Budget…
opments significantly influence the public sector. Lenk (2003) presented typical situations in
E-government implies fundamental knowledge order to stress the specific significance of KM
redistribution and requires a careful rethinking for the public sector.
of the management of information resources and
knowledge bases. • Clerical and professional work concerning
Implementing a framework for the application individual cases to be decided upon
of KM in e-government is a very challenging • Individual services to citizens
task as it requires many agencies, departments, • Pursuit, by citizens or enterprises, of busi-
and policy makers to coordinate their efforts in ness or personal affairs involving public
addition to preparing the technology and sup- bodies
porting the infrastructure—the soft infrastruc- • Management of administrative work and
ture, meaning the laws, rules, and regulations organizations
that must be changed—in order to facilitate the • Policy formulation by ministerial depart-
development of both the new infrastructure and ments and other public bodies
information and knowledge services. While most • Parliamentary work
of the prior research studies have investigated the
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A Framework for Knowledge Management in E-Government
Other researchers (Stracke, 2002; Bresciani, reports and other government information (open
Donzelli, & Forte, 2003; Palkovits, Woitsch, & government) that would otherwise be difficult
Karagiannis, 2003) recognized that in order to to obtain or be unavailable, and through online
efficiently manage e-government evolution, it is debates and plebiscites. It can bring efficiency
fundamental to transform the public administra- through providing citizens with relatively inex-
tion into a learning organization, characterized pensive, real-time access to consistent, up-to-date
by a high level of sharing, reuse, and strategic information and transaction facilities, and in
application of the acquired knowledge and lessons parallel can enable governments to disseminate
learned. A learning organization is an organiza- information at lower costs than ever before. Si-
tion that facilitates the learning of all its members multaneously, modernization and reorganization
and continuously transforms itself. The basic idea of governmental work and responsibilities imply
behind it is to create a knowledge chain (collection, significant changes to knowledge resources. KM
production, customization, and delivery) suitable concepts and tools can really provide great support
to support and improve the whole organization to exploit the huge knowledge and information
functioning. resources, and assist e-government introduction
Bruecher (2003) presented the development of to a modern public administration in an effec-
a requirement analysis for a KM system in the tive way. The positioning of a KM system in an
field of e-government; the objective of the analy- e-government environment is presented in Figure
sis was to figure out the various requirements of 1, adopted by Manuel (2005).
the heterogeneous user group and to provide the A good e-government model provides a plat-
basis for a more detailed blueprint of the system. form where various communities and special-
Key issues, challenges, and opportunities of KM interest groups represent themselves; it builds an
in the public sector were addressed by Cong and environment with specialized expertise that can
Pandya (2003). help answer questions and guide people to find
According to Liebowitz (2004), KM in an e- solutions. This is called the community manage-
government environment can be a powerful tool ment system of e-government. E-government is a
for reformers, inside and outside government. transition process from a conventional to a people-
Recently, Metaxiotis and Psarras (2005) discussed oriented proactive electronic system. To accept
the application of knowledge management in e- this transition process, the communities need to
government initiatives and described a knowledge be trained and educated, and in addition the model
model as a basis for future research in the field. should be accessible by different communities
including the disabled and the underprivileged.
This is called the transition management system of
THE PROPOSED FRAMEWORK e-government. A knowledge management system
FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT provides an environment where knowledge flows
IN E-GOVERNMENT from a source with knowledge to a destination that
needs knowledge and/or captures knowledge and
The Positioning of Knowledge creates new knowledge. Finally, a good e-govern-
Management in E-Government ment environment needs to maintain a powerful
integrated hardware and software network so that
Nowadays, it is quite clear that the traditional several billions of information and knowledge
bureaucratic model of government is no longer pieces can be found in this system by users. This
functional. E-government can contribute to better is called the infrastructure management system
functioning of democracy by online provision of of e-government.
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A Framework for Knowledge Management in E-Government
Figure 1. The positioning of knowledge management in e-government
The Proposed Framework Public education and training. Every citizen
should be equipped with skills to be independently
As e-government implementations progress, the involved in the knowledge-based society.
focus shifts from simply providing access to Infrastructure development. An affordable,
services in electronic form to actively engaging secure, and reliable information, knowledge,
citizens or empowering various stakeholders to and communication infrastructure should be
create an electronic, knowledge-based democracy. developed on a local, regional, and national level
Increasingly knowledgeable citizens require gov- with an efficient connectivity to global networks.
ernments to be on top of newly created knowledge The hard infrastructure will create a broadband
as it is increasingly rapidly produced by more system linking every home, school, and public
differentiated actors. Malhotra (2000) has stressed institution within the community.
that a new perspective of KM is to be effectively Unified KM portal. Portal technologies should
deployed in the world of e-business. integrate content, applications, and processes
Due to the fact that public administrations together. Hence, the portal can deliver better com-
and their organizational environments are char- munications and collaboration between citizens,
acterized by the presence of very diverse kinds businesses, suppliers, public institutions, and so
of actors (e.g., citizens, employees, businesses, forth, providing real-time access to knowledge
politicians, and decision makers), the critical point stored in various systems and knowledge bases
for applying a KM concept to e-government is to push citizens to store, apply, or create new
principally to build a suitable knowledge model knowledge.
(Metaxiotis & Psarras, 2005) and then to create Customer-centric communication and knowl-
an appropriate framework for the application of edge sharing. Is knowledge provided based on
KM in e-government environments, having in customer-perceived preferences, needs, and
mind the positioning of KM in e-government desires? Does the definition mention customer
(Figure 2). focus or customer preferences? Is there an avenue
We used the following main principles for for customers to address their preferences, needs,
deriving our framework. and desires?
Universal access. Every citizen has the right to Based on the above-mentioned principles,
access basic and relevant knowledge of all aspects we have conceptualized our framework for the
of society; therefore, the framework should offer application of KM in e-government, which is
knowledge-sharing services that can be accessed presented in Figure 2.
through multichannels and multidevices.
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A Framework for Knowledge Management in E-Government
Figure 2. The proposed framework
introduction of it within
government
re-
re-engineering of
government processes
e
establishment
stablishment ooff e-
e-
g overnment services
government sserv
erviices
ces
government
E-g phases
overnment phases
P
Publish
ublish iinteract
nteract t
transact
ransact
Communities of Practice knoWledge
k noWledge
CaPture
C aPture
Messaging
group decision support knoWledge
k noWledge
sharing
sharing
kM system lessons learnt
intelligent agents
knoWledge
k noWledge
groupware tools aPPliCation
aPPliCation
semantic Web
k
knoWledge
noWledge
data Mining C
Creation
reation
The proposed framework points that the • Publish: Broadening access to government
gradual development of e-government environ- information
ments in public-sector organizations is similar to • Interact: Increasing public participation in
the one in private-sector organizations. “If you government decision making
automate inefficient processes, they will become • Transact: Making government services
more inefficient” is a well-known adage in the IT more readily available to the public
community. Reengineering is in many instances
necessary to align an agency’s internal processes Due to the high complexity in e-government
with those of other agencies or governments and applications and sometimes the “fuzziness” in
thus facilitate cooperation. Without this, e-gov- public administration procedures, the application
ernment will remain only partial and therefore is of KM principles is a difficult task that should be
likely to be an unsuccessful exercise. combined with traditional business process man-
In the phase of the establishment of e-gov- agement actions. The development of a KM system
ernment services, we follow the World Bank’s in an e-government environment can touch each
(Center for Democracy and Technology [CDT], of the above-mentioned stages and can be related
2002) model, which defines three stages. to any of the KM processes: knowledge capture,
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A Framework for Knowledge Management in E-Government
knowledge sharing, knowledge application, and Applying the Proposed Framework
knowledge creation. Knowledge identification and in a Greek Municipality
capture refer to identifying the critical competen-
cies, types of knowledge, and the right individuals The application of the proposed framework to
(civil servants) who have the necessary expertise the Greek municipality is, according to our best
that should be captured. Then, this captured knowledge, the first attempt to bring KM into
knowledge is shared between individuals, depart- e-government in real practice.
ments, and the like. The knowledge application The municipality of Maroussi is located in
involves applying, which includes retrieving and the north suburbs of Athens, about 11 km from
using, knowledge in support of decisions, actions, Athens’ center, at the foot of Penteli Mountain.
and problem solving, and which ultimately can About 70,000 inhabitants live in the municipal-
create new knowledge. As new knowledge is cre- ity and its area is 16.2 m2. In economical terms,
ated, it needs to be captured, shared, and applied, it is one of the most important municipalities in
and the cycle continues. Greece. It is the center of financial and cultural
Depending on which KM process or function development. The city’s infrastructure is well
we want to apply to an e-government phase, we developed and a series of quality services are
can use the appropriate technology, as shown in offered to the citizens. Some of the city’s most
Figure 2. It is obvious that the application of KM important assets are the following.
in e-government, based on the proposed frame-
work, should be necessarily characterized by the • In its premises lies the main complex in
“divide and conquer” rule; due to the high risk which the majority of the Olympic Games
involved, the government organizations need to 2004 activities have taken place, such as
modularize the KM initiative efforts and imple- the opening and closing ceremony and a
ment them one piece at a time. series of important field sports. This was
It is important to be stressed that the supply a major event for the local region, as well
side of such a framework requires a range of as the whole country. Due to the Olympic
legislative changes, which is a key issue. Legis- Games, many of the city’s infrastructures
lative changes could include the recognition of (e.g., road axes, public transportation, and
electronic documents in courts of law, electronic sports installations) have been significantly
signatures, data matching, knowledge protection, improved. Many other positive interventions
the certification of knowledge, and intellectual have also taken place.
property rights legislation. Regulatory changes • Due to the Olympic Games, the whole region
are also required for a host of activities from gained publicity and reputation outside the
knowledge capture to knowledge creation and country, something that created new ways
knowledge-based service delivery. On the other of cooperation with other cities.
hand, the demand side of the framework gives • Maroussi is the heart of the modern economic
customers access to online knowledge-based life in Athens since it hosts the offices of
services through multiple channels and systems. many innovative and hi-tech enterprises.
This framework includes developing a critical There are more than 1,800 medium and large
mass of manpower and knowledge sufficient to companies that are based in the city repre-
support an e-governance strategy. Unless citizens senting the following sectors: telecommu-
are trained and have requisite skills to participate nications, IT, financial services, insurance,
in e-governance, citizens’ participation and en- construction, and so forth. More than 33,000
gagement would be a difficult task for evolving people are working in these companies.
electronic, knowledge-based democracy.
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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
converted yachts. In many cases it was necessary to construct
complete repair plants. At every naval base overseas there was a
fully equipped hospital. In Scotland the Navy took over an entire
watering place whose hotels, bath-houses and other structures were
converted into large hospital buildings wherein were cared for many
British as well as our own sick and wounded.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WINGS OF THE NAVY
The wings of the Navy, that had barely begun to sprout when the
United States became a belligerent, grew in a year and a half as if
under a conjurer’s wand. Previous to that time the appropriations
that had been granted for the development of naval aeronautics had
been so small that little could be done. Upon our declaration of war
the Navy had 22 low powered seaplanes of no value except for
training purposes, five kite and two free balloons and one dirigible
balloon, and the Naval Aviation Service had three stations, but no
adequate training field, while its personnel consisted of 45 naval
aviators and less than 200 enlisted men.
When the armistice was signed the Aviation Service of the
American Navy had 1,656 trained airplane pilots, of whom half were
in service over European waters; 1,349 ground, or executive,
officers; 3,912 student officers at training fields at home or abroad
who would soon have been ready for service; an enlisted personnel
numbering almost 37,000; approximately 8,000 trained mechanics
and 6,000 more in training; in France, sixteen naval aviation stations
besides others for training and supply work; two stations in England
and four in Ireland; three stations in Italy and the Azores; two
stations in Canada; one station in the Canal Zone; eleven stations in
the United States; 759 seaplanes and flying boats in service for
patrol and bombing work and 140 airplanes or land machines for
land service, with 491 seaplanes and 100 land airplanes for training
purposes, while a dozen planes of new and experimental types were
being tried out; 282 kite and seven free balloons and 11 dirigible
balloons. Many hundreds of seaplanes, flying boats and balloons of
various kinds were on order for early delivery. All this development
of material and personnel, of systems of training for pilots, ground
officers and mechanics, of stations and service, and of the big and
smoothly working organization that produced important results in
the work of the naval aviators was the growth of but eighteen
months.
To ensure the rapid production of planes a naval aircraft factory
was erected at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The contract for its
construction was signed in August, 1917, and in the following March,
228 days after the breaking of the ground, the first machine had
been completed and was given its trial flight. And a few days later
this machine and another which had followed it to completion and
trial were on their way to Europe. In the meantime, in order to meet
the expansion which was foreseen to be necessary in naval aviation
plans, the naval aircraft building was greatly enlarged. Included in
the extension was a huge assembly plant for the assembling of
airplane parts separately built in a large number and variety of
private manufacturing plants whose work for the aircraft factory was
directed by its management. By this means team work was secured,
resulting in quick deliveries and an ample supply of craft for both
service and training purposes. By September of 1918 enough naval
aircraft had been shipped overseas to meet the needs of its
assembly bases there for several months. The big rubber plants
which had almost ceased the manufacturing of balloons renewed
and expanded that phase of their activities and balloon fields and
schools were created or enlarged and newly equipped. The
completion of the Liberty motor brought the later development of
the flying boat, used especially for coastal patrol work.
By Permission of New York Times Co.
Naval Gun on Railway Mount
Candidates for flying commissions were sent to technical
institutions for special courses and afterward to flying stations for
instruction in flying. The most difficult part of the problem of
seaplane construction was that of finding skilled workmen and
personnel for their direction acquainted with the making of aircraft.
The same difficulty handicapped the procuring of trained officers and
enlisted men for work at the supply and repair stations, which were
constantly busy with the assembling and upkeep of the machines. To
meet this difficulty half a score or more of schools for naval aviation
mechanics were established in different parts of the country, with a
force of instructors, who volunteered for the work, composed of
professors in technical schools and colleges. From these schools
came the trained mechanics and ground officers who filled the roster
of the Naval Aviation Service at the end of hostilities.
The Navy Department saw at once that the most important aid its
Aviation Service could give would be coast-wise work directed
against the submarine menace. With that end in view it located its
stations at strategic and important points all down the eastern coast
of the United States, eleven in all, from Cape Cod to Key West, with
another in the Canal Zone. Similarly its patrol stations were dotted
up and down the shores of France, the British Isles and the Azores.
On both shores of the Atlantic its dirigibles and seaplanes helped to
escort outgoing convoys and went far out to sea to meet those
coming in, eagle eyes sweeping the waters to watch for and warn
against the sea vipers. The dirigibles were especially useful in this
convoy work, as they were able to keep pace with the ships.
In addition to this assistance in the convoy service the naval
aviators ranged above the waters far out from shore, hunting
submarines, looking for disabled vessels and for boats and wreckage
carrying shipwrecked passengers and crews sent adrift on the ocean
by submarine officers, and locating mines, and they carried on
bombing operations by sea and land.
The first United States forces to land in France for service against
the enemy belonged to the Air Service of the Navy, which set ashore
there within a month after our declaration of war five naval air pilots
and 100 enlisted men. From this beginning grew the nine seaplane,
one training, three dirigible and three kite stations that dotted the
French shores from Dunkirk almost to the Spanish border. Most of
these stations were used for convoy work, for submarine hunting
and for searching for mines and wrecks. But at Dunkirk was a station
for bombing operations which made day and night attacks on the
German naval bases and supply depots along the Flanders coast,
with especial attention to Zeebrugge and Ostend. After the British
blockaded the entrances to those places the naval aviators,
American, British and Belgian, coöperating in the work, dropped
such a steady rain of bombs by day and night that the Germans
were prevented from clearing away the obstructions. Two stations
that were completed and in operation within ten months included a
large aviation school and flying field at a lake near the coast, which
specialized in bombing practice, and an aviation assembly and repair
base with large machine shops and accommodations for the housing
of their 5,000 men. The naval aviation stations along the French
shores were so spaced that the entire coast line could be kept
constantly under the observation of seaplanes and dirigibles. Some
of the stations were located on uninhabited islets and others in tiny
fishing villages on bleak peninsulas. This naval aviation force with its
dirigibles and seaplanes coöperated so well with the sea patrol that
between them they kept the whole of the French coast, for fifty
miles from shore, safe from submarines through the last six months
of the war.
The two naval aviation stations in Italy and that on the Islands of
the Azores coöperated with the British and the Italian air patrols in
the never ceasing hunt for submarines, the locating of mines, the
watching for wrecks and the convoy of troop and merchant ships.
Especially harmonious and cordial was the teamwork of the men of
our six naval air stations in England and Ireland with the men of the
British naval air service. The aviators flew together, they used each
other’s planes, coöperated in the guarding of the coasts and the
convoy of incoming and outgoing groups of troop transports and
cargo vessels, worked together upon perilous enterprises. Some of
the most moving tales of daring adventure and heroic endurance of
the whole war narrate the deeds of these American boys who guided
the wings of the navy over the coasts and waters of England, Ireland
and France.
In the United States alone naval aircraft flew a distance of over
6,000,000 miles. On the other side, seaplanes and dirigibles aided in
the convoying and protecting of 75,000 ships. Submarine hunting,
which had a greater development than any other line of naval air
work, reached a notable point of scientific exactness in its methods.
Each patrol as it started out had mapped for it designated areas of
the air of certain sizes and shapes and locations which it covered by
following the directed courses by means of the compass. It is certain
that many submarine attacks upon our shipping were thus prevented
and that, by the dropping of bombs, several undersea boats were
sunk. At the time of the signing of the armistice the plans of the
Navy for its Air Service had not nearly reached the peak of
development. But its effect upon submarine activities was already
evident and it is probable that it saved in values of shipping that
would have been destroyed but for its protection more than its
development cost the Navy Department, which had expended upon
it $100,000,000.
The Marine Corps, the Navy’s landing force of fighting men,
developed its own Aviation Service with both heavier and lighter
than air craft, for flying above both land and water, which gave
important assistance in several parts of the battle front.
CHAPTER XIV
THE TRAINING OF THE RESERVES
The rapid, splendid expansion of the navy to more than sevenfold
its former size brought its own big problems of how to prepare for a
very specialized kind of life and duty young men having, as was the
case with most of them, no sea tradition in their blood and but little
previous interest in the naval affairs of their own country. In Great
Britain there are hundreds of families whose names have been
represented in the British naval roster, without the break of a single
generation, for centuries. The very strength of the tradition draws
the sons of these houses into the naval service by an insuperable
attraction and from childhood attunes their minds and hearts to
preparation for naval life and work. And everywhere in Britain pride
in the navy is high and interest in it is keen.
No such previous mental attitude of a whole people made easy
the problem of expanding the American navy and training its new
recruits under the necessity of the highest possible speed. Pride and
interest in their navy have always been potential rather than actual
and constant among the American people. If it did something, in war
or peace, that aroused their sub-conscious feeling about it they were
quick and ardent in their response. But through year after year the
navy was something as foreign to the daily life and interests of the
great mass of people in all that wide extent of inland country
wherein lives the majority of the population as were the canals on
Mars. Very few of them ever saw a battleship or a destroyer or a
naval officer or a bluejacket and only an occasional picture, or
newspaper headline, or magazine article reminded them at wide
intervals of the American navy’s existence.
Under such conditions, the quick response of the country to the
navy’s needs was one of the finest and least to be expected of its
many achievements. From all over the country, Mid-Western and
coastal regions alike, young men began to pour into the naval
recruiting stations, and it is well within the truth to say that the
majority of them came from homes and from regions in which the
navy had hardly been even mentioned or thought about by any one
from year’s end to year’s end. Moreover, they were mainly men of
old American stock. The navy for this war did not become a fused
mass of nationalities, as the army did, but returned to a condition
even more thoroughly native-American than it had recently shown.
Between ninety and one hundred per cent of the seamen of the
enlarged navy were American born. The most of them were of that
fine type of young men, educated and intelligent, who become, a
little later, of consequence in their communities. In their training the
fact that they had had no “sea legs” in their ancestry, or in their own
minds and hearts, did not seem to matter in the least. They took to
the training and to the life on the sea-washed, rolling decks of
destroyers, chasers and other craft as ducks take to water.
The increase of over 400,000 in the naval personnel came partly
through expansion in the permanent strength of the navy, partly
through the enlargement of the various naval reserves, fleet,
auxiliary, coast defense and others, and to some extent through the
national naval volunteers and the Marine and Hospital Corps. In
September, 1918, provision was made by which men in the selective
service might enter the navy instead of the army. A quota of 15,000
men a month was allotted to the naval service, and 5,000 monthly to
the Marine Corps for four months, after which its monthly quota was
to have been 1,500. Provision for the navy was made, at the end of
September, in the Students’ Army Training Corps, under instruction
in several hundred colleges, and naval sections were established in
ninety of these institutions and placed under the instruction of naval
officers.
But the sudden close of the war in November made unnecessary
the completion of these plans for the further expansion of the navy.
While increasing its size and strength at the swift pace that marked
all our war preparations, at the same time it met every need for its
services, of whatever sort, with promptness and efficiency. That had
meant zealous and incessant work in the education for their new
duties of more than 300,000 young men who had joined the Naval
Reserve Force, in addition to those who had become a part of the
naval forces in other ways. At a number of immense camps, where
were built barracks, lecture halls and other necessary buildings for
the housing and training of from 20,000 to 40,000 students at each
station, the young men were trained in naval discipline and schooled
in the maritime and naval subjects in which they must be proficient.
Special schools for officers gave to those who were qualified and
ambitious the necessary instruction. Other schools for advanced and
specialized work trained officers for submarine duty, for assignment
to the naval torpedo station and for work as naval aviation and naval
turbine-engine engineers. An intensive course of instruction at
Annapolis Naval Academy completed the training for officer duty for
many who had already had sea service.
The Navy furnished during the war to the United States Shipping
Board 200,000 trained enlisted men, as well as 20,000 trained
officers, to man its new ships, and the training for these men, in
addition to that for fireman’s and seaman’s duty given at the regular
naval training stations, was provided in nearly fifty different schools,
from those for carpenters, cooks, yeomen, signalmen and divers, to
those for mine sweeping, searchlight control and aviation
aerography. On both ships of the Navy and naval-manned merchant
ships sea-training constantly went on of those who had finished the
courses at training stations, camps and schools, each ship of
whatever type receiving its quota for a certain length of training in
specified duties. Training bases in Europe for men who had already
had some service aboard ship furnished material for refilling the
crews of destroyers, part of whose complement had been sent back
to this country to form the nucleus of new destroyer crews.
The taking over by the Navy, upon our declaration of war, of all
radio stations, the constantly increasing demand for radio operators
in the Navy and on merchant vessels in the transport service and in
commerce made necessary greatly enlarged radio training facilities.
Two large naval radio schools were developed, one at Harvard
University and the other at Mare Island Navy Yard, each of which
gave a four-months’ course and graduated thousands of operators.
In all the naval training camps, stations and schools the utmost
effort was made, as in the army training camps, to conserve the
physical, mental and moral well being of the young men preparing
for sea service. The activities and beneficence of the Army
Commission on Training Camp Activities have already been
described. Under the same head and working along similar lines the
Navy Commission on Training Camp Activities busied itself with the
welfare of the men fitting for naval service and provided them with
books, sports, lectures, music, theatrical entertainments, moving
pictures. There was the same endeavor to develop musical and
dramatic talent and direct its use among the men. The cordial
coöperation of the same civilian organizations that did so much to
promote the welfare of the soldiers in training aided also in
safeguarding the naval recruits and in adding to their pleasure. The
thorough organization of athletic sports in all the camps, both
outdoors and indoors, provided seasonal recreation in the way of
football, baseball, basket ball, hockey, running races, boxing,
wrestling, rowing and swimming. In the last named sport, when it
was found that less than half the young men gathering in the camps
were able to swim, instructors were added to the list of athletic
directors and told to make sure that every man in the camp learned
to take care of himself in the water.
PART ONE: SECTION III. IN THE AIR
CHAPTER XV
CREATING A NEW BRANCH OF WARFARE
The United States had to create for itself, after entering the war,
not only the new arm of air warfare almost from its very foundation,
but also the industry for its development and support. Much
controversy raged over the Government’s air program and its
progress during almost the entire year and a half and many and loud
and long-continued were the charges of inefficiency, incompetence
and failure. Mistakes there were, since human beings have not yet
ceased the making of them, but when America’s achievement in air
warfare is considered in all its phases and as a whole the frank and
fair judgment can not fail to be that her development of the air
section of her fighting forces deserves to rank among the most
notable of all her wartime achievements.
In April, 1917, this country had in the Aviation Section of the
Signal Corps two small and poorly equipped flying fields, sixty-five
officers, 1,120 men and less than 300 second rate planes, most of
them for training, and there were ready for its use comparatively few
of the many and varied manufacturing industries and the trained
workmen necessary for the development of an extensive war
aviation program. Nor was there any one who had more than a
vague appreciation of the complicated technique that would be
required for such a development.
Although aviation had been born in the United States it had not
received here the interest and commercial encouragement necessary
for its growth and had had to betake itself to Europe to find the
means and the opportunity for development. This lack of commercial
interest had been reflected in the army and a conservative General
Staff had given only the slightest consideration to the military
possibilities of aircraft. Not until the summer of 1914 had an aviation
section been incorporated in the army and there had been very little
increase or betterment in its facilities during the following two and a
half years. Even after our declaration of war an important aircraft
participation was not contemplated by the General Staff until it was
asked for by our war associates.
At the outbreak of the war each of the great belligerents was
better equipped for air warfare than was the United States, just as
they were better prepared for war in every way—war having been
for centuries almost the normal condition of Europe, while wars had
been few in America’s short history. But even their planes were
comparatively few in number, poorly equipped and of uncertain
military value. Aircraft had quickly proved their importance and
under the stress and competition of actual warfare there had been
already wonderful developments in the size, horse-power, equipment
and usefulness of the planes and in the skill of the pilots and the
methods of training. But, because the needs at the front were ever
changing and it was often necessary to discard one week the
successful achievement of the week before and constantly to reach
out for new means and new methods, all this development was of
less value to the United States than it would have been under more
stable conditions. Any of it might have to be scrapped any day
because of the developments of the day before. Moreover, so urgent
was the need of England, France and Italy for every flier and every
plane they possessed that, in justice to their own hard pressed battle
lines, they could not offer as much assistance as they would have
liked to give to the development of our rapidly planned air program.
That program was instituted in accordance with the urgent
representations of the British and French war missions which came
to this country soon after our declaration of war. The plans of the
Allied forces, formed under the immediate and the clearly foreseen
conditions of battle, called for great numbers of planes, pilots and
mechanicians at the earliest possible moment they could be sent
overseas. Therefore, the Government began at once to provide the
industries and institute the training facilities necessary for the
creation of this new branch of warfare. The development had to be
from the foundation on both the side of production and the side of
training. From the cutting of spruce trees in northwestern forests
and the weaving of wing fabric to the making of the engines and the
oil for their lubrication, the industry of airplane production had to be
developed and speeded to the point where it would meet the desires
of our war associates. This country had never trained an aviator
sufficiently for participation in aerial warfare and it had neither
schools, nor flying fields, nor fliers trained for teaching, nor a
scheme of instruction. Neither had it the mechanics necessary for
the upkeep of training planes nor schools in which to train them. It
had to begin at the beginning in all these things, and it had to
develop industries and establish schools and prepare fields and train
fliers all at the same time. One could not wait upon another phase
lest the final result be delayed.
Nineteen months later, when the armistice was signed, the two
small and poorly equipped flying fields had increased to thirty-six in
the United States and seventeen in France, preparing students for all
of the demands of aerial warfare. The sixty-five officers had
multiplied to 10,300 flying men and there were 5,460 cadets in
training and almost ready to be added to the number of those in the
air, while there were nearly 8,000 officers in the non-flying divisions
of the service, which contained also 133,600 enlisted men, trained
for their specialized work. Within a year and a half the Air Service
had been expanded from a beginning of little consequence to a size
greater than that of the army in the years before the war and all of
it had been trained in the technique of a new branch of warfare. In
the production of aircraft and accessories 200,000 men and women
were engaged, nearly all of whom had been trained for this skill-
demanding work. There had been produced over 12,000 air and sea
planes, more than 1,000 balloons and 31,800 aviation engines.
During the last month of the war production, which had then
reached a quantity basis, had mounted to the rate of 1,500 planes
and 5,000 engines per month.
CHAPTER XVI
PROVIDING THE MEANS
Spruce and fir production in the forests of the Northwest for
airplane stock was at once pushed forward. I. W. W. agitators
endeavored to incite the men of the logging camps to cease work,
disable machinery and injure stock. But they were driven away, the
loggers and lumbermen of the district formed a Loyal Legion which
was assisted by 30,000 enlisted men sent to the Northwest for this
purpose, and production was increased to unprecedented figures.
The output previously had never exceeded two and a half million
feet per month. By the end of hostilities it had reached 25,000,000
feet per month and was still increasing in the effort to reach the
goal, as it would have done very shortly, of a million feet per day.
To make this possible several railroads had to be located, the
right-of-way cleared and graded and the roads built, all within a few
months. One of them, reaching into two fine spruce districts, had
thirty-seven miles of main line and twenty-three of spurs. The gravel
for the ballasting of its tracks, nearly 5,000 carloads, had to be
transported for a hundred miles. Part of the right-of-way had first to
be cleared by hand power of huge trees amounting to a million feet
of lumber per acre while other portions were covered by thickets so
dense they were impenetrable except as opening was made with
axes. Half a dozen or more other lines penetrated far into the vast
spruce and fir forests of the Northwest. Sawmills were built, great
warehouses were constructed and all the cities of the West and
Northwest were searched for the enormous necessary equipment of
shovels, scrapers, picks, axes, tools of many kinds, steam shovels,
pile drivers, horses. Substantial camps were built to house
comfortably the thousands of workmen. A kiln-drying plant was
erected to insure proper drying of the wood and economize freight
charges upon the stock.
A total of 174,000,000 feet of spruce and fir was shipped out for
airplane manufacture, of which a large part went to our co-
belligerents. It was, indeed, seven months after our entrance into
the war before any of it was sent to American factories, the Inter-
Allied War Council thus directing the supply across the ocean
because the need for airplanes was very great and they could be
more quickly made and sent to the front in this way. Not until more
spruce was produced than was necessary to satisfy their urgent
need was any of it sent to our own factories. By November, 1918,
enough spruce was being shipped out of the Northwest to meet the
needs of all the associated nations.
For wing covering of airplanes linen had formerly been thought
necessary, but the supply of linen was practically exhausted and
there was none for the airplanes we must build. The Western Allies
had been experimenting upon cotton materials for some time but
had thus far produced no fabric possessing the necessary strength.
A substitute for linen for the wing coverings of our airplanes was an
absolute necessity. American chemists and members of the Signal
Corps had already been working upon a series of experiments upon
cotton fabrics and they presently devised a method of treatment that
made them as good as linen for this purpose and thereafter this
substitute was used by both our war associates and ourselves. When
the armistice was signed 1,200,000 yards of this material were being
manufactured and treated per month. Castor oil was necessary for
the lubrication of airplane engines, but the world’s available supply
was barely sufficient for the planes of our war associates and we
would have to grow the beans and make the oil for the engines of
our own planes. Castor beans for seed were rushed from India and
planted by the thousand acres and machinery installed for crushing
the beans and refining the oil. In the meantime, chemical
experiments were being made for the purpose of discovering or
devising a substitute. They were finally successful and an oil was
produced that was equally good for all except the rotary type of
engine.
Not only had the production of airplanes and engines to be
provided for but a great variety of accessories of which the country
had none was equally necessary. The aviators needed special
clothing and equipment; for the battle planes there had to be
mechanism synchronizing their machine-gun and propeller action,
new kinds of ammunition, bombs and bomb accessories specialized
for air combat; planes of all kinds had to be equipped with many
kinds of gauges, meters and other instruments requiring the most
delicate and exact work in their manufacture, and necessary also
were cameras for air use and camera guns for training purposes.
The manufacture of all these and many other accessories had to be
instituted and rushed forward and, because of the shortage in skilled
labor and the need for it in so many kinds of war production at the
same time, workers had frequently to be trained for the making of
them. At the end of hostilities between three and four hundred
manufacturing concerns, employing over 200,000 skilled workers,
were supplying the various needs of this highly specialized branch of
warfare.
While this preparation and development were going on ground
schools and flying fields for the training of the personnel of the Air
Service were being planned and built. For the study of airplane
engines and of the elements of aviation and for military training
arrangements were made with universities and technical institutions
in various parts of the country and within a few weeks after the
declaration of war young men were at work in “ground schools” at
eight of these institutions.
This first step in the training required eight weeks and when the
first students to be graduated from it were ready for primary
instruction in flying the land for some of the flying fields had been
acquired and tents set up. Here, under primitive conditions, they
began their work, and kept it up while the fields were being
developed underneath the wings of their planes. Construction
proceeded rapidly and in a few months every one had its
comfortable barracks for the cadets and men of the squadrons,
shower baths, lecture buildings, mess halls, officers’ quarters, long
rows of hangars for the housing of the planes, and all the usual
structures of a large cantonment planned and built according to the
principles of sanitary engineering and provided with telephone,
electric lighting, water, sewage and garbage disposal systems. One
of these fields, representative of them all, although they varied in
size, with its hangars, machine shops, machine-gun ranges, landing
fields, fire department and its many buildings, covered five square
miles—more than 3,000 acres. As the system of training was evolved
the fields were specialized and each one was developed according to
the purposes for which it was used. In all, thirty-six flying fields were
built in the United States, while in France several great air
instruction centers, one of them the largest in the world, comprising
in all seventeen fields, were prepared and in use when the war came
to its sudden end.
America’s war associates had developed a multiplicity of types of
both planes and engines, with much resulting loss of economy both
in production and in the training of the fliers to operate them and of
the mechanics necessary for their upkeep. Profiting by this mistake,
the Air Service of the United States endeavored to simplify types.
The primary need was a standardized, high-powered motor that
could be produced in quantity. Two or three engineers devoted
themselves to this problem, working out in a few weeks the Liberty
Motor, which proved to be a signal contribution to air warfare and to
the possibilities of peace time aeronautics. It soon demonstrated its
worth for all except the light pursuit plane and won the highest
praise from our own airmen and from those of England, France and
Italy. By the time it was ready for manufacture battle front needs
had begun to indicate the necessity for a still higher horsepower and
the making of these complicated changes delayed its completion.
The first contract for its manufacture was signed early in September,
1917, and when the “cease firing” order was passed along the battle
lines over 15,000 had been turned out and quantity production at a
rate of 2,000 per month had been reached, while 16,000 motors of
other types brought the total to 31,800. The month of October had
seen a total production of 5,600 airplane motors.
Advising with the air service officials of England, France and Italy,
it was decided that this country could render the most efficient aid
by specializing in battle and observation planes, rather than by
attempting to produce all of the several kinds into which the
developments of air warfare were specializing airplane uses. The
types of foreign planes selected for these services had to undergo a
certain amount of alteration to fit them for the Liberty motor and for
other reasons, but when production began it proceeded rapidly, and
over 3,000 were built, together with a large quantity of spare parts
for repairs. Other types were being adapted to the American engine,
which was considered the best engine for these planes, and new
designs were being developed when the armistice was signed, and
all of these would very soon have been in quantity production.
American designers had been spurred to high pressure effort by the
needs of the country and among the planes ready for testing, or
already tested, approved and ready for manufacture, were several
embodying original ideas that would have made them highly efficient
as fighting planes. One of these was so simplified for the purpose of
speedy production that it required but one-tenth the number of parts
of the ordinary service plane of European design.
The first necessity of our plane production was for training
purposes, of which we had hitherto made only those for primary
instruction. Deliveries of improved models of these planes began in
June, 1917, but those for advanced instruction required longer for
their manufacture. At the end of hostilities more than 8,000 had
been provided. In a year and a half an airplane manufacturing
industry had been developed and a total of nearly 12,000 planes had
been produced, together with a large quantity of spare parts of
every type, and there were orders outstanding for service planes to
be ready for early delivery aggregating a value of $125,000,000.
In addition to the means for training flying men, there had to be
provided a series of schools for the training of the non-flying officers
and men of the Air Service. Engineer officers to direct the upkeep of
the equipment, supply officers to keep it on hand in sufficient
quantities, and adjutants to have charge of the records were all
essential to the Air Service. All had to have a certain amount of
training and, at first, schools were provided for each of these special
needs. Schools or courses of instruction had also to be instituted for
aerial photography, for radio work, for armament and compass
officers. Another series of schools for mechanics was necessary in
order to train men for the fifty or more trades necessary in the repair
and supply shops of flying fields. Much of the work was new to
American mechanics and demanded the greatest skill, care and
delicacy of execution and in schools for this purpose intensive
training was given to them as rapidly as they could be secured.
Many of these mechanics had also to be sent overseas, at the
request of our co-belligerents, for service in their factories and flying
fields, in addition to those who went to work in our own flying fields
in France.
CHAPTER XVII
TRAINING THE MEN
Great as was the problem this country faced in the spring of 1917
on the material side of the creation of a new branch of warfare in
the American Army—the construction of fields and planes, the
development of industries and the procuring of skilled labor—even
greater was the problem of working out a new system of training.
We are accustomed to the creation of new industries and certain
nuclei already existed around which this new one could be formed.
We had trained a few civilians and soldiers to fly, but we had not
trained an aviator, and had no means of training even one, for
usefulness on the battle front. And we were urged to send overseas
at the earliest possible moment 5,000 aviators schooled in the
developments and the specialties which nearly three years of the
hot-house growth of war aeronautics had brought about.
The British, French and Italian Governments detailed to this
country, upon our appeal, a few expert fliers and teachers of flying
to aid in the early development of our effort and cadets were sent
from the United States to the flying fields of Canada, England,
France and Italy to hasten their training. Some of these joined the
flying forces of those countries and others returned after a few
months to become instructors at our own hastily established fields.
The few civilians and army men who had learned flying in pre-war
days were at once set to work as instructors at the primary fields.
The most apt of the American cadets, of whom many took to flying
as do birds of the air and quickly became expert, were used as
instructors at the home fields instead of being sent overseas for
service. And so finally an expert and capable instruction personnel
was built up and a system of instruction evolved that represents a
work of such diligence, ingenuity, resource and enthusiastic and
incessant effort as to make it one of the many memorable
achievements of the war.
At the beginning of the evolution of the training system it was
necessary to organize medical boards to pronounce upon the
physical fitness of candidates. The requirements were rigid and the
work was new and therefore the highest available medical skill must
be obtained. Fifty or more of these boards were established and in
the first year examined nearly 40,000 men, of whom almost half
were unable to pass the severe tests. As the months went on,
experience developed the methods of determining the applicant’s
physical fitness for flying to a remarkable degree of efficiency. The
American system of training diverged somewhat, at its very
beginning, from that of other nations, since it demanded a higher
degree of scholastic attainment, a collegiate degree or a certain
amount of collegiate work being a requisite, as it was believed that
the mental development thus obtained would enable the student
flier to advance more rapidly. As the system was finally developed,
the candidate who had passed successfully the initial physical test
had first a month of military training at a camp devoted solely to this
work to give him due regard for discipline and for accuracy of
statement in the making of reports, to inspire him with military
morale and to give to his body and spirit a thorough testing in order
that those who should fall short under its severe demands might be
sifted out at the beginning.
Airplane Ambulance
American Flying Field in France
Then came two months in a ground school, of which there were
eight located in as many universities and technical schools in
different parts of the country, where the cadet, under military
discipline, received practical and theoretical training in the study of
motors, airplane construction and other elements of aviation. By
means of long hours and close application the young men did as
much work during the two months spent at these schools as they
would ordinarily have covered during an academic year. The next
step was training at a field for primary flying under the dual control
system and practice in solo flying until the cadet could pass the
requisite tests which permitted him to be graduated as a Reserve
Military Aviator, with the rank of second lieutenant. Then he passed
on to other fields where he was taught advanced flying, acrobatics,
night flying, formation flying and aerial gunnery, and afterward to a
specialized field where he qualified to be a pursuit pilot and fly and
fight his own machine, or to be a bombing or an observation pilot, or
to do reconnoissance or photographic work.
At the close of hostilities fields for every specialty had been
constructed and equipped and the system of training was receiving
its final development in the establishment of brigades at a large
flying center where the men were formed into squadrons, trained for
work together and sent overseas as a flying unit. The signing of the
armistice found one such great center, ranking among the largest
plants the United States had constructed for the prosecution of the
war, almost completed, its several coöperating fields able to handle
over 7,000 men at a time and turn out a steady weekly installment
of air squadrons, each with its eighteen flying officers, five ground
officers and 150 service, supply, construction and repair men,
trained, organized and ready for the final two or three weeks of
experience at the flying fields overseas before being sent to the
front.
The system of training thus worked out had been evolved in the
face of many difficulties. There were no text-books, no traditions, no
bodies of accepted rules and methods. As finally developed, it was
modeled somewhat on the British system, with important
modifications and differences. But the passing months saw in it, as it
evolved, many and sometimes striking changes. It was constantly in
a fluid state, subject to the results of experiment and of observation
upon the cadets in training, to the conclusions of instructors and
field commanders after comparison of experience, and to the
evolving ideas of scores of air service men. And especially was it
subject to the information, suggestions and orders that came back
from the battle front in France, where air warfare was being shaped
daily and weekly by war conditions and demands into new methods
and new developments. And the training on these fields four
thousand miles away had to be kept closely in touch with these
constant developments and imperious needs and its methods and
aims changed from day to day, if necessary, to meet the
requirements.
By experiment, observation, steady thinking at high pressure and
comparison of ideas on the part of every instructor, every officer and
every cadet at every field, methods of instruction were hammered
out for each phase of the work. Each field brought its offering of
daily experience and almost every flight contributed something to
the accumulation of facts out of which grew, finally, some surety of
knowledge. Into the development of methods flowed a steady
stream of ideas, discoveries, experiences and experiments, and so
day by day the American system of training grew to better results
and higher efficiency. Text-books, for the most part, were type-
written or mimeographed accounts of results that had been gained
the month, or the week, or the day before by following certain
methods, with comments and suggestions as to their use.
Many contributions of value to the general theory and practice of
training for flying were made by these enthusiastic young men who
toiled unceasingly over the problems set by our training fields. One
young lieutenant, while studying the causes of airplane accidents
and trying to find some means of preventing them, worked out a
series of exercises which reproduce the positions that must be taken
in advanced flying and so enable the cadet early in his work to find
out whether or not he is physically unfit to undertake acrobatic work
and also give him a measure of preparation for it. Experiment
showed that the motion picture film had possibilities for the flying
instructor and when hostilities ended it had been drawn into the
system of training and was beginning to be used to hasten and to
make safer the cadet’s progress. Sitting safely in his chair, he
watched whirling horizons, skies and landscapes, pictured from an
airplane going through one acrobatic performance after another,
noting the varying appearances of the pictures and his own
sensations, and so having his nervous system educated in advance
for what he would have to undergo, learning in time whether or not
it would unduly affect him and gaining quickly and without danger
valuable experience. An important development, worked out and
used at American flying fields, was a series of tests of the flier’s
physical ability to endure high altitudes. Observation showed that
accidents sometimes were the result of inability to endure rarefied
atmosphere and by placing the student in a tightly closed room,
gradually exhausting the oxygen and noting his reactions it was
speedily determined whether or not it was safe for him to attempt
high flights, either with or without a device for supplying him with
oxygen.
The flight surgeon, specialized out of the army medical officer, was
one of the early developments of training for air warfare and soon
also there appeared, first devised and used at an American field, the
flying ambulance, which enabled him and his assistants to go at
once to the help of an injured airman, give him first aid and bring
him back in the fuselage of the ambulance plane to the hospital. The
end of hostilities saw at least one flight surgeon at every aviation
training field in this country and several at each of the large ones.
And there had been established a division of flight surgeons for
which medical officers could receive a special course under the
direction of the Medical Research Board of the Surgeon General’s
Office. The flight surgeon’s duty was to keep every aviator under
observation, to examine each one physically before and after flying,
to note the effects of flight, especially at high altitudes, to determine
how frequently he should fly and to discover whether or not he had
physical peculiarities which would unfit him for any special kind of air
service. To aid in this work, which was producing remarkable results
in the way of both efficiency and safety, there had been established
at many of the flying fields research laboratories which worked out
new tests and special and ingenious apparatus for using them and
made examinations and observations of the airmen in training.
Associated with the work of the flight surgeon was that of the
athletic instructors who, toward the end of the war period, were
appointed for service at the flying fields. They were former college
athletes and athletic instructors who had received special training for
the work of keeping the student aviators in the best possible
physical condition.
These phases of the system of training that was worked out at
American fields aimed to lessen the chances of accident and to gain
greater speed and efficiency in the progress of the cadets.
Throughout the war period the United States made a much greater
effort to lessen the casualties of training than did any other nation. A
longer period of work under dual control and more knowledge and
skill before the cadet began solo flying were demanded by our
system of training than other nations thought necessary. This and
other provisions for the safety of the cadets made our training
casualties less than half those of any other nation among our war
associates. The record of American flying field casualties showed
278 fliers killed in training, an average of one to each 236,800 miles
flown by cadets.
The system of training had not only to produce men for work in
the air. It had also to train large numbers for a great variety of work
necessary to sustain and coöperate with the flying fighters and
observers. In addition to unskilled labor, fifty-two trades and
occupations are essential to the aviation service and men had to be
either wholly or partially trained in each of them. At first, in order to
secure skilled men with the utmost speed, mechanics were sent in
detachments to a great number of factories where special training
was given them and afterward, as experience began to disclose what
would be needed, carefully worked out courses of training were
established in nearly a dozen different schools. Government schools
giving thorough training, in operation at the end of the first year of
war, were graduating 5,000 mechanics every three months. Aerial
photography had developed during the war to an exact science, but
when we entered the conflict very little was known about it in the
United States. Instruction in it was of a threefold character, for
observers had to learn how to operate cameras in an airplane,
intelligence officers on the ground had to be instructed in the
interpretation of the results and enlisted men to be taught to do the
developing, printing, and enlarging and to keep the equipment in
condition. Schools for training in all these things soon produced the
necessary instructors for the flying fields where training in aerial
photography was given.
It was a complicated and difficult problem that the United States
faced when it undertook to work out a system of air training while it
was training the men for air service. But within a year and a half it
had evolved an efficient system that set higher standards than did
other nations and also better safe-guarded the lives of the men in
training, and while doing this it had sent overseas 4,776 trained
flying officers, had as many more at home fields, and had in training
at home more than 5,000 cadets, of whom nearly half were in
advanced stages of the work. In the final test of service at the front
the men who had been trained by that system received for their
ability, skill and deeds the heartiest and highest praise.
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