Knowledge Management

1
Knowledge Management Higher Education An Open
Framework for Learning

• Mahmoud M. Watad, PhD
• Qatar 2008
• Exploring ICT in Education
• CNA-Q and ictQATAR

2
Knowledge Wisdom

• Data observations (H or M)
• Information what to do
• Knowledge how to do
• Understanding why- accelerate the acquisition of
  K
• Wisdom perceiving the future
• Ackoff

3
Learning Performance

• Learning is to acquire I, K, U, W
• Adaptation learning under changing environment
• D, I, K, U contribute to efficiency
• Wisdom contribute to effectiveness
• Performance
• Efficiency doing things right
• Effectiveness doing the right thing
• Ackoff

4
Knowledge Definition- Content

• explicit, articulated
• patent
• written procedures
• new product
• tacit, intangible
• experience
• group interaction\informal associations
• culture

5
Knowledge Definition- Context

• Attributes of Practical Knowledge- as they relate
  to D-M KMS
• Relevant
• Current
• Actionable

6
Knowledge Conversion

• Tacit to tacit Socialization
• Tacit to explicit Externalization
• Explicit to Explicit Combination
• Explicit to tacit Internalization
• Nonaka

7
Levels of Organizational Knowledge

• Individual
• Group
• Organizational
• Inter-organizational links

8
Leaning Organizations-

• A learning organization is the one that can
  create the results it truly desires (Peter
  Senge).
• where new and expansive patterns of thinking are
  nurtured, where collective aspiration is set
  free, and where people are continually learning
  to see the whole together.

9
Learning by Design not by Chance

• Personal mastery - there is always something to
  learn-
• Shared vision - everyone is going in the same
  direction
• Sharing knowledge - learning from others
• Transferring k - training, staff rotation
• Systems thinking - seeing the whole
• Solving problems not symptoms
• Learning from the past - continues review of
  failure and success
• Senge

10
Comments on Senge

• To see the whole together
• It is very difficult
• Achieved in small organizations
• Creating the results it desires- requires
• the speed of learning system to match the speed
  of environmental change
• Can ICT\KM help?

11
A Simple Leaning System

• Scan and recognize mistakes\problems
• Requires information
• Diagnose them- find cause-root
• Requires understanding
• Act- prescribe corrective measure
• Requires knowledge
• Learning how to learn very important
• because the complexity rate of change in the
  environment are high
• Identify and correct new mistakes while
  correcting earlier mistakes
• Ackoff

12
Learning Organizations

• The ability of the organization to change itself
  by
• Acquiring new knowledge
• Acquiring new skills behaviors
• Always searching for new ideas and opportunities
• Speed of learning competitive advantage
• KM objective is to increase the speed of learning
  (acquiring knowledge, etc., )

13
Higher Education

• As an organization
• Complex mission / objectives
• Decentralized (spread) authority structure
• Difficult to measure outcomes
• Culture?
• Current Dynamics
• Reduction in government support
• Increasing Costs
• The rise of virtual universities programs
• Students attitudes
• Research funds are more competitive

14
Higher Education- Structure

• Entities
• Students as learners
• Staff as learners
• Faculty as learners
• Processes- subsystems
• Administration
• Instruction
• Research Consultancy- knowledge creation
• Recreation Sports

15
Academic Programs Objectives

• AP use Knowledge transfer mechanism to prepare
  students for the task ahead
• Most of the Knowledge is tacit and should be (is)
  transferred mainly in a face-to-face fashion
• The question is how to improve the quality and
  effectiveness of AP?
• What is the impact of using ICT tools?
• Can KM make people impart of their tacit K and
  make it available to people who need it?

16
Higher Education- Needs

• Minimum Needs
• to increase productivity/efficiency
• to become more accountable to their stakeholders
• To enhance fundraising activities
• To enhance competitiveness- be more attractive
• Response
• Investment in ICT
• More in ERP, Web Portals, Course Mgmt Systems
• Less in KM tools (ECM, BI, Search, Collaboration)

17
Organizations KM Context

• Large Organizations lose motivation that drives
  productivity creativity of entrepreneurial
  business.
• Work is specialized and has rigid boundaries,
• Flow of information is hierarchical
• Too many rules
• High performance employees leave
• Workers comfortable with organization mediocrity
  usually stay

18
KM- a definition

• KM is about organizational efforts not only to
  capture, organize, and distribute Info
  Knowledge but manage expertise so that is
  accessible by the individuals who need it-
• Resulting in new knowledge that will enhance
  organizational performance

19
KM Efforts

• ICT-based KM efforts
• KM systems, CRM, BI,
• Vendors Push
• ICT driving
• Cultural-based KM efforts
• Knowledge Sharing
• People Push
• Shared vision driving

20
Waves of Office Automation

• 1st Wave
• Task based, spreadsheet, word processing
• 2nd Wave
• Process driven, EDM, ERP
• Replaced well established processes
• Expectations are clear
• 3rd Wave
• System oriented, KM
• There are no well established procedures
• Fuzzy expectations

21
The Main Question

• How should organizations manage their information
  and knowledge resources to provide
  employees/users with better capability of making
  accurate decisions, and consequently improve
  organizational performance?

22
KM Initiative

• Managing organizational know-how (building new
  systems, cultural change, new practices)
• Producing current, relevant, and actionable
  Knowledge
• Make Know-how available when needed
• Very complex
• Lack of clarity
• Lack of measures
• Lack of understanding of knowledge flows

23
KMI Guiding Goals

• To help users understand and formulate problems
  quickly.
• To speed up the process of finding information
  users need to accomplish their tasks.
• To connect knowledge sources and assets (i.e.,
  records, documents and people)
• To create, capture and organize knowledge assets.
• To ensure that newly created decisions
  solutions are accessible to any part of the
  organization.

24
Benefits of KM

• Experts network
• Organizational memory
• Problem-solving capability
• Survival

25
ICT Push for KM

• Integrated Reliable Networks (voice, video,
  data)
• Flexible databases (records, documents, etc)
• Diffusion of Portals and web services
• OLAP, Mining, Search, and Retrieval tools
• Web-based Social Networks
• Internet shift
• from communication info platform to a computing
  platform
• from HTML to XML Web 2.0 tools (wikis, blogs, )

26
Core KM Technologies Adopted by HE

• ERP and Portals
• Content Management - ECM
• Business Intelligence - BI
• Search Applications-
• Collaborative Tools-
• KMS at minimum must enable K generation
  (capturing), K coding (categorizing), K transfer
  (delivering)

27
KMS- Knowledge Repository (Research)

• Generation
• Presentation
• Organization (indexing)
• Evaluation
• Sharing (distribution)

28
KMS for e-Learning

• In a Fast changing competitive environment
• Individuals, organizations, etc, must then find
  ways to reduce the time to
• What to do
• How to do it (all aspects of tasks execution)
• Relevance of skills and Knowledge
• Building tools to enhance the speed of learning

29
People ICT

• ICT Systems - are extensions to our memory,
  communication, etc.
• Cyborg
• Human plus ICT or ESS electronic support system
  to enhance performance
• Simple telephone, email
• Complex CMS, KMS, BI, e-learning system
• e-leaning system/environment
• The higher is the level of interactivity the
  higher is Knowledge acquisition

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ICT Objectives

• Focusing on collaborative learning (problem-based
  learning) - instead
• Focusing on self-study Individual skill
  acquisition
• Use ICT to promote connections L-L
  interactions- both- synchronous asych

31
CMS

• They are build around the course not around the
  student-learner
• Geared toward delivering content, communication,
  and evaluation vs. teaching student how to think
  (interactions with others)
• Survey by Educause - most students are using them
  for access to material grades
• Can Web 2.0 help?

32
WEB 2.0

• Tools and practices to facilitate collaboration
  and creativity
• WIKI- Collaborative software to create, edit,
  organize content
• Blogs, RSS- web feeds
• Folksonomy vs. Taxonomy (practice of
  classification)
• Web Social-Networking
• Web based communities of practice

33
Communities of Practice

• Use ICT tools to create these communities
• Cross-organizational groups-
• Create, share, and apply organizational K
• Organizations can empower them and make them part
  of overall organizational strategy
• Bring all learners together
• But also you need culture that promote
• Trust
• Diversity
• Taking risks to question others values opinions

34
Reasons of not being Ready for KMI

• Employees have no time
• Culture doesnt encourage sharing (no trust)
• Not understanding KM and its benefits
• Not able to measure financial gains
• Lack of skills in KM techniques
• Lack of support from the top
• Culture values control

35
How to do it?

• Assess the current state of K resources
• Focus on Knowledge Sharing
• It eventually will evolve to KM
• Focus on People needs
• But then develop the most robust IT
  infrastructure
• OK to make mistakes while going in the right
  direction
• Better than no mistakes while going in the wrong
  direction
• Top people must be committed
• The rest must believe

36
How is happening?

• IT Vendors Push- creating better tools
• Users Pull- demand for better services
• Students want on-line registration
• Faculty wants search tools
• Staff wants streamlining business processes
• Market Pressure
• Proliferation of On-Line Degrees
• Shift in CA from LCL PD to Speed to Market

37
Success Failure Factors

• Plan for change
• Effective communication
• Training
• Minimum customization
• Select superior product

• Goals are not clearly defined
• Lack of top m support
• Organization is not committed for change
• Inadequate training
• Implementation problems

38
Final Notes

• Academic culture must change from knowledge
  hoarding to K sharing
• It is easier to convince organizations to buy new
  ICT tools rather modify or redesign processes
• KM should be advanced in organizations as a
  continuing effort
• There is no one strategy to advance KM
• However, organizations should follow clear
  guidelines centered on user performance

39
Useful Sources

• www.knowledgeboard.com
• European KM community
• www.ISKME.org
• Institute for the study of KM in education
• www.icasit.org/km
• ICASIT KMCentral Int center for applied studies
  in IT- GMU
• www.KMWorld.com
• KMWorld
• www.educause.edu
• educause- promotes the use of IT in Higher Ed
• www.oercommons.org/
• Open source for free H Ed resources

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Thank You

• Questions?