gOEbase is a support system for Human Resource, Training, Organizational Development and similar professionals who support line managers and employees (i.e., their "customers"). People in these positions are increasingly asked to act as internal consultants without the necessary skills and tools to succeed.

gOEbase is designed to:

• Increase their internal consulting capabilities
• Increase their speed of response to internal customer needs
• Reduce reliance on external consultants
• Accelerate the readiness of users to serve as internal consultants
• Ensure that users have access to necessary tools without redundant tool development (particularly among geographically dispersed users)
• Allow HR departments to enhance organizational effectiveness

A customizable Enterprise version is designed for large organizations with 50 or more users, while the Professional version is appropriate for companies with a smaller number of users.

A. Major Navigation Entry Points

gOEbase enables users to quickly locate resources to handle customer interactions, diagnose organizational problems, recommend and implement solutions, and evaluate progress. The targeted user group performs high discretion tasks and uses different styles of inquiry, so the design intentionally includes several ways to access relevant resources. All resources are available through at least two different navigational means. There are three main entry points accessible from the home screen:

• The Issue Definer entryway - is a navigational aid that enables the user to quickly locate resources to address a wide range of issues. It guides users to relevant resources by presenting users with a series of choices, each of which provides a successively more detailed description of the potential issue. The Issue Definer helps users clarify the problem they are facing and then identifies a few targeted resources designed to address the problem that can be immediately accessed.
  
  
• The Advisors entryway - takes the user to a list of applications ranging from simple interactive databases to relatively complex expert systems. Based on user input, each Advisor provides customized, contextualized advice (e.g., one Advisor helps users respond to particular requests - it suggests appropriate questions for uncovering the underlying issue, identifying appropriate alternatives, and eliminating inappropriate solutions given the particular situation.)
  
  
• The Resource Library entryway- brings the user to a library where users can access all resources, grouped either by topic or resource. The topics included in gOEbase are:
  • Change Management
  • Competencies
  • Consulting
  • Diagnosis
  • Evaluation & Measurement
  • Morale / Retention
  • Organizational Design / Structure
  • Performance Management
  • Strategic Management
  • Teams
  • Training / Human Resource Development
  
  
  gOEbase home page
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B. Other Components

Accessible from the main page are also full-text search, "Web Links" (a portal of HR/Training/OE sites of interest), a featured "Resource of the Week", and a lightbulb icon/button leading to a list of and links to recently-added resources. The lightbulb flashes if one or more new resources have been added since the user's last logon.

C. The Toolbar

In addition to the major components mentioned above, the user always has a number of functions available on the toolbar:

• Home - the user can always return to home page with one click
• The Notepad - this applet is an "on-top" window that permits the user to drag & drop text from gOEbase and edit it or comment on it. Such content can then be saved
• Bookmark - an applet that enables the user to bookmark any page and return to it at will without using the browser "Favorites"
• Print - generates a print-friendly version of a resource
• Feedback - users can send feedback to the developers from any page 

D. Customization

Organizations can add their own resources at appropriate locations throughout gOEbase. For example, users can access their company's guidelines for performance management under that section in gOEbase. Only users from that organization can see those resources.

How gOEbase supports user performance

gOEbase is designed to support performance by helping users perform a wide range of tasks. For example, gOEbase can be used to:

• Prepare for meetings with customers
• Interview employees or managers
• Diagnose organizational needs or problems
• Resolve team conflict
• Address individual performance problems
• Support an organizational change
• Develop and carry out an evaluation plan
• Assess a program's effectiveness

The resources contained in gOEbase support users in tasks such as these by providing timely insight, advice, information, and tangible tools.

gOEbase incorporates many best practices in Human Resources, Training, and Organizational Development. For example, there are surveys and other tools based on the latest research, expert advice based on normative data, and step-by-step processes captured from experts. In addition, gOEbase facilitates the transfer of best practices by continually adding the latest academic research findings, translated into language that practitioners can use and understand.

gOEbase does not directly delineate conditions, considerations, or criteria for selecting a goal. However, it does help performers establish what they can do, want to do, and where to go based on stored information. For example, one Advisor enables users to compare their situation to a database from over 100 companies, allowing them to decide whether it is appropriate for them to proceed. gOEbase provides advice that can help performers establish realistic goals and plans. Examples of such advice include: determining the appropriate number of people to survey; deciding when and how to gather evaluation data; planning how to overcome common consulting obstacles; establishing how to maintain effective communications during an organizational change; determining how to re-structure a business unit.

• Overviews contain general information on a topic, or step-by-step "how-to" guides. Professional development and informational support for the challenges facing a user are two purposes of overviews. Overviews have links to relevant tools.
  
  Screen Shot of Sample Overview
  
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• Tools are worksheets, surveys, spreadsheets, exercises, tipsheets, and other job aids.
  
  Screen Shot of Sample Tool
  
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• Advisors  are database-driven applications which request contextual information before providing advice to specific questions; in some cases these are actual expert systems.
  
  Screen Shot of Advisor
  
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• Research summaries contain summaries of the latest research, translated into actionable recommendations in non-technical language
  
  Screen Shot of Sample Research Summary
  
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• External Resources  contain reviews or information about relevant books, websites, and other resources outside of gOEbase
  
  Screen Shot of External Resources
  
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• Guided Educational Tours educate users on a particular topic (e.g., consulting process). Unlike the rest of gOEbase, which is designed as a real-time performance support tool, a Tour provides a self-paced educational alternative for users that want to learn more about a particular topic. It guides users to various resources, asking them questions about the resource, and allowing them to record when they have completed each "stop" on the tour.
  
  Screen Shot of Guided Educational Tour
  
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gOEbase supports the natural flow of work. Usability testing and user feedback reveals that no training is required to quickly access relevant resources. The Issue Definer guides users to appropriate resources as they are needed, and does not assume that users must perform a series of linear steps on the job. This is critical because the targeted jobs are not linear but involve high discretion and complexity. gOEbase provide multiple navigational options that allow users to follow their natural styles of inquiry. Resources are integrated in a way that reflects expert "mental models" of the functional relationship of the domain, but does not require users to be cognizant of those relationships. Rather it allows them to follow natural thought streams and build expert models over time.

The following graphic illustrates how different resources relevant to a topic are clustered via interlinking, and how clusters of resources are themselves interlinked into a logical schema.

A "Mental Map"
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We believe that gOEbase does, in fact, stretch the PCD/EPSS paradigm in a few ways.  

1. gOEbase has targeted a high-discretion, professional job. Most PSS focus on fairly routinized or linear jobs. Flow, sequence, and informational demands can be more easily identified for routinized jobs. In contrast, task analysis or process mapping of high-discretion jobs yield less in the way of clearly defined, unalterable processes. Consequently, gOEbase's design needed be such that it could be support users through information access, problem definition, etc. as detailed above. One way in which this is done is to have the user stipulate contextual information for a particular issue. The system can then ask further targeted questions, resulting finally in contextualized advice. An example is the Evaluation Mentor (an Advisor). This embedded "expert system" uses the iterative question/answer/question method to provide recommendations on a detailed evaluation plan for the user's situation, including recommendations on design, measurement instruments and items, potential pifalls, and so on.
   
   Interestingly, although gOEbase was not developed as a "shell," we have received feedback from several sources that gOEbase's architecture could be modified to accommodate other high-discretion jobs.
   
   
2. The structure of gOEbase allows the user to pinpoint a solution or to "wander around." Users report that when time is tight they can identify and go directly to a particular resource to help them. However, they also report that gOEbase has helped them uncover new ideas or ways of thinking when they had the time to follow links among related resources.
   
   
3. gOEbase is customizable by company. Each company that purchases gOEbase appoints a company gOEbase administrator. This individual has rights to add or delete users on that account. Also, companies receive the right to have their resources added to gOEbase. There is a sense of company ownership (for example, when any user logs on, he/she sees a main screen that shows the logo of his/her company, and in most cases will find a letter from a company executive about the company's use of gOEbase).
   
   
4. gOEbase is a continually updated resource with a novel approach for alerting users. As a web-based application, gOEbase users do not wait for "releases" but instead are notified when new content has arrived. When a user logs on, the flashing light bulb icon indicates new content and allows the user to immediately review the new content if desired. Each user is personally alerted only when new content has been added since their last log on.
   
   
5. gOEbase is "web-ware" or a "weblication." We believe that gOEbase is a true PSS, but one that resides on the World Wide Web. This means that users may access it from home or the road, as well as from the office. In addition, we have found that IS/IT departments have no reservations about gOEbase, because the standard configuration of local machines are not affected.
   
   

The most common job titles among current gOEbase users are Human Resource (HR) Manager and HR Generalist. Other users have Training, OD, Learning, or other HR-related titles. Users range from fairly junior level professionals, including new HR Associates who are going through developmental assignments, up through senior level Directors and VP's. The educational level of these individuals tends to be quite high. Almost all have college degrees, with many possessing Master's degrees or beyond. Some perform the type of work that gOEbase supports on a full time basis, while others also have other, more transactional responsibilities.

gOEbase enables these individuals to move successfully from a transactional role to a role focused on addressing business needs through internal diagnosis and consulting. The leverage that gOEbase provides is in increasing skills (e.g., through tools that can be adapted and used in their organization) and business knowledge.

gOEbase has been adopted by such organizations as Whirpool, the St. Paul Companies, FirstUSA Bank, Charter One, and the United States Air Force Research Laboratory. Although no scientific field study has yet been conducted on the impact of gOEbase, there has been a great deal of favorable anecdotal evidence and customer reaction.

We've selected one example to illustrate the benefits of gOEbase. Although admittedly anecdotal, it is representative of numerous similar instances.

In one company, a senior leader felt that business unit leaders should assess and compare the status of their business units. After searching for an appropriate tool or methodology for several weeks without success, they asked a gOEbase user in their HR department to help them develop a tool or bring in outside help. The user went to gOEbase, accessed an Advisor to identify a few clarifying questions to ask her customer. She then returned to gOEbase and followed the issue definer to identify the Organizational/Business Unit Assessment worksheet. The next day, she shared the tool with her customers. After minor modifications the worksheet was administered to 35 business leaders, and the gOEbase user followed the guidelines for using the worksheet results to facilitate an action-planning meeting. The modified worksheet will be added into gOEbase as a company specific resource, and will be used in another part of the company in the future.

The results of using gOEbase in this case:

• Response time to the customer was 24 hours versus several fruitless weeks prior to accessing gOEbase
• Using gOEbase averted the need to bring in costly external consultants
• The HR professional who accessed gOEbase enhanced her consulting capability and was quickly able to help the team of leaders
• Other users will have access to the revised tool and may avoid redundant tool development in the future
• HR was able to help their customers identify potential business unit needs and develop plans to enhance organizational effectiveness