Case Studies of Knowledge Modeling for Knowledge Preservation and Sharing in the US Nuclear Power Industry

As populations age and large numbers of skilled workers progress toward retirement, the importance of preserving and sharing expert knowledge is becoming an increasing concern for organisations worldwide. This article contains descriptions of two case studies involving initiatives to elicit, preserve, and share expert knowledge in the nuclear power industry using a knowledge modeling toolkit named CmapTools and knowledge elicitation techniques that were originated at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Pensacola, FL., USA. Along with an account of preparations for the work including the selection of the experts, the course of the sessions, results and impacts of the studies, missed opportunities, and lessons learned are described. Some similarities and some interesting differences between the case studies are discussed.