Title: Enhancing enterprise resource planning users' understanding through ontology-based training

Authors: Aristomenis M. Macris

Addresses: Business Administration Department, University of Piraeus, 80, Karaoli & Dimitriou Str., Pireaus, 18534, Greece

Abstract: An ERP system is a set of highly integrated and parametric applications, designed to fit to a variety of business. Because of this inherent complexity, its implementation can be very demanding and the users involved must undertake extensive training using sophisticated training materials. Existing training materials present major weaknesses that the current paper aims to overcome, such as: 1) semantic inconsistencies; 2) lack of explicit definition of constructs; 3) lack of knowledge reusability. This paper proposes a prototype model for the design and development of ERP training material, where both the multimedia objects used in training scenarios and the knowledge built into them are captured and fully reusable. The proposed approach helps trainees understand: 1) which are the building blocks of an ERP application; 2) how they relate with each other; 3) how they can be used in order to solve business specific problems.

Keywords: enterprise resource planning; integrated applications; parametric applications; ontology-based training; semantic web; ERP building-blocks; semantic inconsistencies; constructs definition; knowledge reusability; multimedia objects; training scenarios; trainees; problem solving; learning; world wide web; training materials.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKL.2009.031506

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 2009 Vol.5 No.5/6, pp.404 - 422

Published online: 08 Feb 2010 *

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