Knowledge Management- A brief Walk through

Introduction

Once upon a time the value of "knowledge for its own sake" was taken for granted; indeed, it represented the highest idea of the progressive notion of education as a process that not only taught "for" and "about" something, but, most importantly, was deeply engaging as it enlightened and ennobled. Arguably, in recent decades there has been a move away from that position, most particularly so with respect to the companies that lives on knowledge that recognizes knowledge is an important asset for those organizations.
Knowledge is gathering over time and will assist the organization be successful. A survey by Reuters found that 90 per cent of companies that deploy a Knowledge Management (KM) solution benefit from better decision-making, while 81 per cent say they notice increased productivity. This article will highlight how the implementation of Knowledge Management would help to carry out the success.

Software Industry and Knowledge Management

The software industry is resource-oriented and it becomes quite important to ensure that knowledge in the minds of resources is safeguarded. It is found that, while 26 per cent of knowledge in the average organization is stored on paper and 20 per cent digitally, an amazing 42 per cent is stored in employees' heads. There have been many instances where the learning and knowledge is lost when resources move to newer roles, or leave the organization.
Knowledge is invisible and is tied up in customer relationships. It is linked to the ratio of experienced to junior employees. KM assists in getting the right knowledge to the right person as fast as possible and assists in retaining customers. The most difficult part in implementing KM is not the technology It is to understand where knowledge resides within the organization.

Definition of Knowledge Management

Gartner defines Knowledge management as an integrated and collaborative approach to the Creation, Capture, Organization, Access and Use of Information Assets. The Knowledge cycle is as given below.

The various steps involved are described as follows:

• Knowledge is created. This happens in the heads of people.
  
• Knowledge is captured. It is put on paper in a report, entered into a computer system of some kind, or simply remembered.
  
• Knowledge is organized, where it is classified and modified. The classification can be the addition of keywords which could be indexed. Modification can add context, background or other things that make it easier to reuse later. The test of this step's success is to determine how easily people in the organization will be able to access and use the knowledge when they need it.
  
• “Knowledge is shared and used. When knowledge is shared and used, it's modified by the resources that use it. This takes us back to knowledge creation.

Types of Knowledge

It is essential to know about the types of the knowledge before implementing KM in an organization. The two types of knowledge are Explicit and Tacit knowledge.

Explicit Knowledge

Explicit knowledge is recorded and can be accessible. It can either be structured or unstructured. Some of the examples are Internet, intranet, best practices, emails, newsletters etc.

Tacit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge refers to the knowledge that resides in an individual's mind. It is the "know-how" and experience of the staff member that is vital to the organization. Some of the examples are formal/informal face-to-face or telephonic conversations, videoconferences and presentations, individual knowledge and expertise, mentoring and coaching. Due to changes in the organization and relationships/roles changing regularly, there is confusion about who holds what knowledge. This affects organization’s ability to respond quickly to customer and market requirements. These changes put a considerable risk on the organization of losing its competitive edge.

Facts, Data, Information and Knowledge

• Data is obtained from Facts.
  
• Information is obtained from Data
  
• Knowledge is obtained from Information.

For example a sales person's achievement is data. We need to understand and organize data to get information e.g. Region wise Sales data collected for several years.
If this information is analyzed for patterns across months, we get knowledge e.g. When the sales data is collected for years and organized month wise and analyzed for few years, we get patterns when the sales are high. This gives us knowledge that sales peak just before year-end. One of the reasons could be that several companies need to exhaust their budget during year-end, hence the increase in sales.

Differences between Tacit & Explicit Knowledge

If this knowledge is recorded and accessible, it is explicit knowledge. If this knowledge is in the mind of few people, then it is tacit knowledge. This tacit knowledge needs to be captured and others in the organization need to know.

Tacit knowledge is about individual's decisions and actions, expertise, experience, values, emotions and beliefs. We need to know what tacit knowledge is important for the organization. This will determine how the tacit knowledge can be downloaded and used by others. We also need to look into how the tacit knowledge is relevant for business strategy. There are several ways to harness tacit knowledge. One of the most common ways is through Community of Practice (CoP). Community of Practice acts as conduit for tacit knowledge to flow.

Community of Practice (CP)

Community of Practice, unlike a task force, involves voluntary contribution by members. There is usually increased involvement in the beginning due to a "curiosity factor" but it reaches a realistic membership level in 3-4 months.

The champions drive the community and needs to have passion to sustain it. Many communities die a natural death if participation reduces. It is quite important that the community adds value to itself and to the organization. This way there will be top management support and commitment.

Community members need to be open and ensure that they are discussing something useful and critical, which can be of interest to the members. All the members need to contribute for the success of the community. If there is contribution by only a few members then the community is not functioning effectively. It is then a training/mentoring session not a Community of Practice. This will result in interest being reduced and the community will cease to exist. It is important that there is contribution by all members.

Implementation of KM

Implementation of KM varies from company to company, country to country. It has to be localized to suit one's requirement.

Planning is important and the organization must be willing to take the risk. KM practitioners should have management support and not over-promise. They should take things at a small scale and monitor the progress of the KM initiative. If any problems arise during this stage, they are easier to solve.

Once it is stabilized, we should able to move to the next stage, where KM can be implemented organization wide. However, the plan will need to be revised continuously. Most importantly, knowledge management requires determination and perseverance

KM practitioners should not expect immediate returns on KM investment. It may take several iterations of real input and measurable output and subsequent updates before a good KM system is in place.

Conclusion

KM requires lot of collaboration. Collaboration is sharing and using the information regularly. An organization needs to ensure that tacit knowledge is harnessed and is available to all. Community of Practice (CP) facilitates in capturing tacit knowledge.

E-learning has definite benefits over traditional classroom teaching. The most obvious benefits provided by eLearning are the flexibility and the cost savings from not having to travel or spend excess time away from work, there are also many other benefits that might require a special mention here. They include:

eLearning software provides the benefit of integrating media with interactivity. Various kinds of audio, video, graphics, multimedia and animation effects can be included within course material that enrich the content and make it more appealing to the learners. Benefit of Integrating media with interactivity provides a very useful edge to eLearning domain as far as the field of imparting education and training is concerned.

eLearning software provides better text effects for interactivity. It allows text to appear and disappear, or simply move to another location on the screen, within pre-set time increments or upon a click or rollover of the mouse. Using this type of animation may make more sense in many learning and training instances where there is a requirement to provide interactive response for the subject’s actions that helps him make better use of the system.

The power of audio may often be overlooked, but the combination of written and spoken words does have a big impact on recall and retention. eLearning software provides the benefit of including audio within the course content along with user controls. The hard part is determining where to use audio, and knowing how much to use. Audio, just like other media files, requires good bandwidth if being used within a Web-based program.

Inclusion of video within course material provides the benefit of using video stories to put the subject into its context of use, using video clips followed by questions to encourage active participation from learners and help them build on existing knowledge. The possibility of building video interactivity into learning experience also exists. Having optional endings for scenes that the student can select based on the course they are pursuing incorporates some of the gaming aspects in learning. Students could go through portions of learning material, then begin a video story that they control through selecting actions that create a scenario. Their choices would be graded based on the correct actions.

eLearning software can also provide for Streaming Media, which allows the student to see the video (or hear the audio) immediately. Rather than waiting for the complete file to download. The student hears it as it is "streamed" to his or her computer. There are, however, hybrid possibilities that could include links to the Internet for streaming media or other training media.

Animated graphic elements are great to use in any learning environment. They are fun to watch, and can get a message across that words or audio (or even video in some instances) cannot. Animation is another element, however, that has to be used appropriately. While animations don't typically require the bandwidth that video does, they still can slow down a Web-based program.

The possibilities for animations and interactivity provide tremendous benefits within any eLearning environment.

Interspersing the course with quizzes that pop up after material has been presented offers good feedback and reinforcement for learning. In most learning situations, the more immediate the feedback, the better -- it's the building effect of learning.

Questions and quizzes can be inserted at appropriate places within the learning material using eLearning software tools. Inserting multiple choice, multiple-multiple choice, true-or-false, matching or fill-in-the-blank questions is simple, and feedback can be given immediately after the question is answered. The feedback can be in the form of an audio response or text response.

The answers to these questions can be tracked and used to compute the student's final score and grade for the course. As a course administrator, one can look back and see any areas that caused difficulty and reassign those areas for additional training.

In a recent survey about eLearning the following results were obtained. Respondents were primarily interested in eLearning because it increased access to learning (86 percent). Two-thirds of respondents noted that growth in employee skills, ability to track learner progress through a learning management system, and increased job performance were key reasons for their interest. Slightly more than half perceived distinct advantages of Web-based learning including the standardization of content and assessment procedures, enhanced interactivity, and learner satisfaction. Employee retention and keeping up with the competition were aspects chosen by approximately one-fourth of respondents. Other responses included cost savings, reduced travel time, greater flexibility in delivery, and the timeliness of such training.

According to Gartner, the market for corporate elearning is expected to be worth almost US$680 million  by 2007, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22 per cent.

Technological changes increase complexity and velocity of work environment. Technology has changed the way we live, work, think and learn. Today’s workforce has to process more information in a shorter amount of time. New products and services are emerging with accelerating speed. As production cycles and life spans of products continue to shorten, information and training quickly become obsolete. Training managers feel the urgency to deliver knowledge and skills more rapidly and efficiently whenever and wherever needed. In the age of just-in-time production, just-in-time training becomes a critical element to organizational success.

Fierce competition in most industries leads to increasing cost pressures. With traditional training methods, companies generally spend more money on transporting and housing trainees than on actual training programs. Approximately two-thirds of training costs are allotted to travel expenses, which represents a major drain on bottom-line profitability. In todays competitive environment, organizations can no longer afford to inflate training budgets with extensive travel and lodging. If opportunity cost is taken into account, the actual costs of training are even higher. Time spent away from the job traveling or sitting in a classroom reduces per-employee productivity and revenue tremendously.

Learning has become a continual process rather than a distinct event. In the new economy, corporations face major challenges in keeping their workforce current and competent. Many past training practices are unable to meet these challenges. Traditional training is often unrelated to new business initiatives or key technology drivers. While learning is not a one-time activity, training has traditionally been treated as such. To retain their competitive edge, organizations have started to investigate which training techniques and delivery methods enhance motivation, performance, collaboration, innovation, and a commitment to lifelong learning.

Explosive growth of the Internet provides delivery vehicle for education. The emergence of online education is not only a matter of economic and social change, but also of access. Through its increasing reach and simplicity of use, the Internet has opened the door to a global market where language and geographic barriers for many training products have been erased.

Advancement in the technology along with the standards. Technology infrastructure, especially for bandwidth, varies widely. Lack of compatibility between existing learning technologies and current IS infrastructure is one of the main barriers to adopting Web-based training. However, the race for education technology standards is on. Advances in a wide range of technologies supporting diverse education and training tasks are currently being made. Issues such as content interoperability, metadata tagging, and bandwidth are being addressed. The industry is moving towards creation of the flexible, adaptive, and integrated learning systems needed to push eLearning into the mainstream.

Globalization of business is resulting in manifold challenges. Advances in information technology and falling trade barriers facilitate business around the globe. As borders become less meaningful, global competition intensifies. International expansion and accelerating Mergers and Acquisitions activity have led to larger and more complex corporations. Today’s businesses have more locations in different time zones and employ larger numbers of workers with diverse cultural backgrounds and educational levels than ever. Thus, more information has to be delivered in increasingly larger organizations, challenging internal planning, logistics, and distribution. Corporations worldwide are now seeking more innovative and efficient ways to deliver training to their geographically-dispersed workforce.

Technology has revolutionized business; now it must revolutionize learning. In the 21st century, people will have to learn more than ever before. Especially for global organizations, live classroom-based training is becoming too costly and cumbersome. Even if employees had the time to attend all the courses and seminars and to read all the books and reports they should to remain up-to-date in their area of work, the cost of such learning would be prohibitive. The need to transform how organizations learn points to a more modern, efficient, and flexible alternative: eLearning. The mission of corporate eLearning is to supply the workforce with an up-to-date and cost-effective program that yields motivated, skilled, and loyal knowledge workers.

Anywhere, anytime, anyone. The Internet offers the logical solution for a corporates training objectives. As per the estimates approximately 80% of the professional workforce already uses computers on the job. Technical obstacles, such as access, standards, infrastructure, and bandwidth, will not be an issue in the coming time. The growth of the World Wide Web, high-capacity corporate networks, and high-speed desktop computers will make learning available to people 24 hours a day, seven days a week around the globe. This will enable businesses to distribute training and critical information to multiple locations easily and conveniently. Employees can then access training when it is convenient for them, at home or in the office.

Substantial cost savings due to elimination of travel expenses. When delivered through technology-based solutions, training is less expensive per end user due to scalable distribution and the elimination of high salaries for trainers and consultants. The biggest benefit of eLearning, however, is that it eliminates the expense and inconvenience of getting the instructor and students in the same place. According to Training Magazine, corporations save between 50-70% when replacing instructor-led training with electronic content delivery. Opting for eLearning also means that courses can be pared into shorter sessions and spread out over several days or weeks so that the business would not lose an employee for entire days at a time. Workers can also improve productivity and use their own time more efficiently, as they no longer need to travel or fight rush-hour traffic to get to a class.

Just-in-time access to timely information. Web-based products allow instructors to update lessons and materials across the entire network instantly. This keeps content fresh and consistent and gives students immediate access to the most current data. Information can be retrieved just before it is required, rather than being learned once in a classroom and subsequently forgotten. Training Magazine reported that technology-based training has proven to have a 50-60% better consistency of learning than traditional classroom learning (c-learning).

Higher retention of content through personalized learning. Technology-based solutions allow more room for individual differences in learning Styles. They also provide a high level of simulation that can be tailored to the learners level of proficiency. With 24x7 access, people can learn at their own pace and review course material as often as needed. Since they can customize the learning material to their own needs, students have more control over their learning process and can better understand the material, leading to a 60% faster learning curve, compared to instructor-led training. The delivery of content in smaller units, called chunks, contributes further to a more lasting learning effect. Whereas the average content retention rate for an instructor-led class is only 58%, the more intensive eLearning experience enhances the retention rate by 25 - 60%. Higher retention of the material puts a higher value on every dollar spent on training.

Improved collaboration and interactivity among students. In times when small instructor-led classes tend to be the exception, electronic learning solutions can offer more collaboration and interaction with experts and peers as well as a higher success rate than the live alternative. Distance education can be more stimulating and encourage more critical reasoning than a traditional large instructor-led class because it allows the kind of interaction that takes place most fully in small group settings. Studies have shown that students who take online courses are typically drawn into the subject matter of the class more deeply than in a traditional course because of the discussions they get involved in. This engagement is further facilitated by the fact that instructors do not monopolize attention in an online environment. Another study found that online students had more peer contact with others in the class, enjoyed it more, spent more time on class work, understood the material better, and performed, on average, 20% better than students who were taught in the traditional classroom.

Online training is less intimidating than instructor-led courses. Students taking an online course enter a risk-free environment in which they can try new things and make mistakes without exposing themselves. This characteristic is particularly valuable when trying to learn soft skills, such as leadership and decision-making. A good learning program shows the consequences of students’ actions and where/why they went wrong. After a failure, students can go back and try again. This type of learning experience eliminates the embarrassment of failure in front of a group.

According to CCA consulting, nearly 50% of higher education institutions currently engage in some type of online learning. Academic and professional organizations agree that using web-based learning environments can offer sound pedagogical benefits. According to researchers from Cornell University, “the web provides significant new functionality in transmitting information to the student and providing forums for exchange. The web is revolutionizing some areas of study through increased opportunities for learning and alternative formats for information.”

Enhancing student-to-student and faculty-to-student communication
Web-based education tools provide many ways to increase communication between class members and faculty, including discussion boards, chats, and e-mails. Researchers have found that adding these elements to a course increases student motivation and participation in class discussions and projects. Students are "more willing to participate [and] a measure of anonymity, which serves as a motivator… people feel more empowered. They are daring and confrontational regarding the expression of ideas,"

Students experience a sense of equality
Another benefit of using web-based communication tools is to give all students a reinforced sense of equality. Each individual has the same opportunity to "speak up" by posting messages without typical distractions such as seating arrangements, volume of student voices, and gender biases. Shy and anxious students feel more comfortable expressing ideas and backing up facts when posting online instead of speaking in a lecture room. Studies prove that online discussions provoke more confrontational and direct communication between students.

Accommodate different learning styles
An instructor can also present these materials in many formats to accommodate different types of learning styles. For example, if an instructor puts both lecture notes and slides online, both visual and auditory learners benefit. Students who prefer to focus on "listening" and "watching" during lecture do not have to worry that they are missing important concepts while scrambling to take copious notes. They can focus on understanding the material and concepts as they are presented. Students with attention difficulties or those who get overwhelmed by organisational tasks also benefit, because materials provided show how the instructor has grouped and prepared materials in the handouts, and indicate what items are most important.

Encourage additional rehearsal time
Additional benefits for those who "learn by doing" occur when students participate in online discussions, as students are exposed to an extra period of information rehearsal. Typically, students rehearse information when they study for exams or complete assignments. However, they also rehearse information when formulating thoughts into sentences and typing those thoughts into the computer. When instructors post discussion questions or short essay assignments in the online portion of a course, students must attend to and reflect on the subject matter before responding. This results in reflection and articulation of content, as the very process of reporting and writing about what they have learned engages students in an activity learning experience.

Remove reliance on physical attendance
In traditional education, students working on group projects must co-ordinate schedules. In distance learning environments, this may not even be possible, forcing participants to work independently. When web-based collaborative tools are available, co-ordination is no longer an issue. Providing a project team with asynchronous discussions and file uploads, students can work in groups without the constraints of meeting together at a certain date, time, and location.

Providing just-in-time methods to assess and evaluate student progress
Learner assessments are essential in education. Tests and surveys inform the instructor whether teaching methods and course structures are successful. These assessments also determine if student progress is satisfactory. Online assessment tools provide instructors with many ways to build, distribute, and compile information quickly and easily.

Adds pedagogical benefits
Web-based testing features also have pedagogical benefits. From the student viewpoint, frequent assessment provides concept reinforcement and increases motivation. Instructors can post practice exams and end-of-chapter reviews without worrying about finding the time and resources to analyze results. Students can access these assessments at any time, privately and in the comfort of their home. Since grading is computerized, students receive immediate feedback. This may also help students who suffer from test anxiety relax and minimize embarrassment for those that do poorly

Reducing amount of faculty time spent on "administrivia."
In addition to the pedagogical benefits of online learning, there are also several time and money saving advantages. Students can save and print items as needed when provided handouts and readings online. The direct result is a reduced institutional expense for both the cost and time associated with copying, collating, and distributing these materials. Instructors can also use E-mail to send messages directly to students or the Announcements feature to communicate with the entire class. Not only does this insure that students receive the materials, but it is also environmentally appealing, as it drastically reduces paper waste.

Utilize time efficiently
The time saving elements introduced by web-based education tools apply to both the instructor and the student. Students benefit because they have immediate access to course materials at any location. They do not have to spend time walking across campus to the instructors office or searching for a reading in the library. Instructors can minimize time spent in office hours, and address student concerns online instead.

Reduce faculty workload
Instructors and TAs can also save time using products like online examination management system. When the Assessment Designer is used to design quizzes or tests; feedback, grading and analysis can be automated. Time previously spent correcting, formulating statistical deviations, and analyzing specific questions can be used for other things. Even student records can be exported directly into spreadsheets for turnover to the registrar.