Chris Marino, a Principal Solution Consultant at Enterprise Knowledge (EK), was a featured speaker at this year's Data Architecture Online event organized by Dataversity. Marino presented his webinar "Learning 360: Crafting a Comprehensive View of Learning Content Using a Graph" on July 20, 2022. In his presentation, Marino took participants through the entire Graph development process, including planning, designing, and developing the new tool, highlighting benefits to the organization and lessons learned throughout the process.

1. Learning 360
Crafting a Comprehensive View of Learning Content Using a Graph

2. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Chris Marino
⬢ Principal Solution Consultant /
Solutions Architect
⬢ 25+ years experience designing and
building search-focused applications
⬢ Provided technical expertise for
multiple content management and
graph-based projects
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-j-marino/
@EnterpriseFind
https://enterprise-knowledge.com/

3. 10 AREAS OF
EXPERTISE
KM STRATEGY & DESIGN TAXONOMY & ONTOLOGY DESIGN
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AGILE, DESIGN THINKING & FACILITATION
CONTENT & BRAND STRATEGY KNOWLEDGE GRAPHS, DATA MODELING, & AI
ENTERPRISE SEARCH INTEGRATED CHANGE MANAGEMENT
ENTERPRISE LEARNING CONTENT MANAGEMENT
80+ EXPERT
CONSULTANTS
HEADQUARTERED IN ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, USA
ESTABLISHED 2013 – OUR FOUNDERS AND PRINCIPALS HAVE BEEN PROVIDING KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT CONSULTING TO GLOBAL CLIENTS FOR OVER 20 YEARS
AWARD-WINNING
CONSULTANCY
KMWORLD’S
100 COMPANIES THAT MATTER IN KM
(2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021)
CIO REVIEW’S
20 MOST PROMISING KM SOLUTION PROVIDERS (2016)
INC MAGAZINE
#1289 OF THE 5000 FASTEST GROWING COMPANIES
INC MAGAZINE
BEST WORKPLACES (2018, 2019, 2022)
WASHINGTONIAN MAGAZINE’S
TOP 50 GREAT PLACES TO WORK (2017)
WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL’S
BEST PLACES TO WORK (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
ARLINGTON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT’S
FAST FOUR AWARD – FASTEST GROWING COMPANY (2016)
VIRGINIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE’S
FANTASTIC 50 AWARD – FASTEST GROWING COMPANY
(2019)
PRESENCE IN BRUSSELS,
BELGIUM
EK at a Glance
@EKCONSULTING

4. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Agenda
Q & A
Solution
Lessons Learned
Problem
Benefits

5. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
What is a Graph Database?
Stores the things
we want to
describe, their
properties and how
they are related.

6. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Features of 360 System
⬢ Deals with content that is
highly connected where
connections have great
importance
⬢ Unifies content from multiple
source systems
⬢ Allows you to investigate data
from any starting point
⬢ Serves as complement for
source systems, not
replacement (“read only”)

7. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
The Problem

8. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Learning Content Team
from Major US Retailer
Owns Relationships with multiple
Business Partners / Customer.
⬢ Create and maintain learning
content that supports a Great
Workplace
⬢ Consists of Team Leads, Content
Managers, Content Designers,
and Creative Designers
Ensures alignment with priorities and
strategies; identifies gaps, develops plans,
provides solutions.
Develops, builds, and designs learning
content delivered in a variety of
modalities for associate consumption.
Creates and maintains content in
multiple systems and formats:
• Instructor-Led Training
• eLearning
• Video / Animation
• Web Content

9. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
LEARNING CONTENT DOMAIN
ILT
Course
Assess-
ments
Badge
Job Role
Learning
Path
Nano-
Learning
Course
E-
Learning
Course
Manual
Content

10. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Challenges
⬢ Lacked efficient means to manage, find, and curate learning content
across the organization
⬢ Lacked ability to accurately describe content – provide uniform
labels and establish relationships between various pieces of content
⬢ Needed better way to direct learning content and target audience
based on experience and characteristics

11. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Manage and Find Content
⬢ Wasted time searching for
content created and stored in
multiple, siloed systems
⬢ Lacked accessibility and
awareness of existing content
⬢ Experienced wasted time and
money spent recreating,
manually managing, and
duplicating content

12. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Describe and Relate Content
“What content do we currently have on
cake decorating?”
⬢ Struggled without consistent
means for identifying and
labelling content
⬢ Lacked ability to identify gaps
in content based on topic, job
roles, etc.
⬢ Managed relationships
manually in spreadsheet
“What contents needs to be completed to
earn this badge?”
“What is the seat cost of learning for an
overnight stocker?”
“Where are our gaps in learning content
and which areas/topics do we need to
target?”

13. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Direct and Target Content
⬢ Inability to provide
recommended content and
personalized experience.
⬢ Lacked sophisticated
content curation especially
around metadata
⬢ Not consistently defined
⬢ Totally missing

14. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
The Solution

15. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Digital library based on graph database which provides 360-
degree view of Learning Content by automatically syncing,
tagging and connecting content in source systems to enable
a “single view of truth”.
Learning Content
Database (LCD)

16. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Graph Database
A linked data store that organizes structured
and unstructured information through:
▪ Entities (Nodes, Verticies)
▪ Relationships (Edges)
▪ Properties (both)
Consists of triples
▪ entity → relationship → entity
▪ subject → predicate → object
Relationships are first-class citizens. Can have
its own properties.
Digital library based on graph database which provides
360-degree view of Learning Content by automatically
syncing, tagging and connecting content in source
systems to enable a “single view of truth”.

17. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Graph Use Cases
⬢ Content Management
⬢ Data Analysis – Fraud detection,
anomalies
⬢ Data Unification - Connect and tag
content from multiple sources
⬢ Recommendation Engine

18. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Why Graph?
⬢ Excels at connecting highly
related content
⬢ Provides great flexibility both
technically and editorially
⬢ Contains simpler model for
understanding content and
how it’s connected

19. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
LCD TECHNICAL DIAGRAM
Learning Developers
Search Engine
Taxonomy Management
Tool
Knowledge Graph Database
Gremlin API
Azure Cosmos Graph Database +
CMSs
LMSs
BADGE &
HR DATA
Java Script
Front-End & API
React JS Library
Node JS

20. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
GRAPH MODEL

21. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Data in the Graph
Subject Predicate Object
Course A hasTopic Topic A
JobCode B belongsTo Badge A
Course A contains Assessment D
Badge C requires Course F
Learning Path B includes Course D
Course A isRequiredFor Badge C
… … …
Course
A
Topic
A
Badge
C
Assess
-ment
D
hasTopic
isRequiredFor
“mappedDate”: “2022-07-01”,
“mappedBy”: “cmarino”
contains

22. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
360 System Features
⬢ Course detail page contains
data from multiple systems
(unifies, highly connected)
⬢ Multiple detail pages allows
you to different ways of
viewing data (any starting
point)
⬢ Separate Tech Stack storing
data in different format
(complement)
Digital library based on graph database which provides
360-degree view of Learning Content by automatically
syncing, tagging and connecting content in source
systems to enable a “single view of truth”.

23. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
How It Fits Together
Data Sources
Business Ontology Graph Database
Badge B
Course A
Course C
Role F
Topic D
Topic E
Business Taxonomy
Digital library based on graph database which provides
360-degree view of Learning Content by automatically
syncing, tagging and connecting content in source
systems to enable a “single view of truth”.

24. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Single View of Truth
⬢ Staff has single application to
locate learning content that is
current, curated, and findable
⬢ Provides a holistic view of
content showing important
relationships
⬢ Not all source systems will ever
have all info about a piece of
content
Digital library based on graph database which provides
360-degree view of Learning Content by automatically
syncing, tagging and connecting content in source
systems to enable a “single view of truth”.

25. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Benefits

26. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Findable Content
Outcome
⬢ Any learning content is easily
and quickly located
“Here’s the real ask: Looking for all pieces
of learning where we teach WIC, what are
we offering, where and for whom
Old Way: [three days later, of searching in
SharePoint, Searching in AEM, Sending
notes to content managers, etc]
New Way: 2 second search in LCD. ”
Benefit
⬢ Decreased time searching for
content = more productive staff
(increased time savings and
reduced costs)
Lacked efficient means to manage, find, and
curate learning content across the organization

27. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Well Curated Content
Outcome
⬢ Curated content with uniform tags
and explicit relationships enhance
ability for the retailer to identify gaps
in their learning content.
Benefit
⬢ Increased ability for the retailer to
mitigate the repercussions
associated with on-site store
safety, diversity and inclusion,
and employee and customer
health and well-being
Lacked ability to accurately describe content –
provide uniform labels and establish
relationships between various pieces of content
“I can now answer questions like these …”
“How much training do our cashiers receive
on de-escalation best practices?”

28. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Direct and Target Learning
Outcome
⬢ Improved visibility into each
associate’s capabilities
Needed better way to direct learning content
and target audience based on experience and
characteristics.
Benefit
⬢ Provides workforce with the
necessary skills and expertise
to do their jobs effectively as
well as upskill employees and
guide their professional
development.

29. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Foundation for Future
AI/ML Solutions
⬢ AI/ML efforts require well
curated content (metadata)
⬢ Many graph algorithms
available for use cases like
recommendations/similarity,
outliers, etc.

30. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Lessons Learned

31. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Buy In from IT
⬢ Graphs are probably new to
your IT team
⬢ Used to established model
using relational databases
(Oracle, SQL)
⬢ Take time to educate and
explain

32. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Model First
⬢ Intuitive, Graph is like your
Whiteboard
⬢ Nodes vs Properties – depends
on the questions your asking
⬢ Graph queries work best by
starting at location

33. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Iterate
⬢ Don’t try to push all content
into graph immediately
⬢ Agile Process is good fit
⬢ Establish process for adding
content
⬢ Look for high value content
⬢ Analyze and Model
⬢ Solve access and technical
issues
⬢ Repeat

34. ENTERPRISE KNOWLEDGE
Understand Source
System Limitations
⬢ Not every source system can
store metadata
⬢ Use graph as metadata
management tool – single view
⬢ Good source for storing
“holistic” metadata
⬢ Auto Tagging isn’t perfect,
allow human interaction
⬢ Use ID from source system

35. Q&A
Thank you for listening.
Questions?