Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques - Assignment Example

Knowledge management Question 1 The various definitions of knowledge management that have been stated show wide disparity in the real meaning of knowledge management. the first definition of knowledge management “The tools, techniques and strategies to retain, analyze, organize, improve and share business expertise” by Groff and Jones (2003, 2), shows that knowledge is all about sharing the skills that have been developed in the organization that one is working in. this definition shows that knowledge is limited to a business. There are four strategies that have been shown here of knowledge, which are to retain, analyze, improve, and share. The definition stresses that there are tools which are used to undertake this process. There is also an aspect of improving the knowledge that is already there. There are tools that are used to improve the knowledge that is already there. The second definition, “The effective learning processes associated with exploration, exploitation and sharing of human knowledge (tacit and explicit) that use appropriate technology and cultural environments to enhance an organization’s intellectual capital performance” by Jashapara (2004) also shares the same aspect of knowledge sharing. With this aspect, it is clear that knowledge discovery is a process which should be treated with care and utmost importance in the business. It has some relationship with business strategy which, although it cannot be said to be another business strategy, it has there must be one business strategy must be aligned with the tenets of knowledge management must exist for this to be successful. Knowledge management needs some sort of culture where there is the promotion of collective thinking and sharing. However, culture alone is not the only thing needed for knowledge management to be said to be successful. The process of exploring and discovering knowledge has a specific process that needs to be managed and handled well so that efficient knowledge can be discovered. This definition therefore stresses the need to handle the knowledge management process well. The third definition is that of knowledge management is “Knowledge – the insights, understandings, and practical know-how that we all possess – is the fundamental resource that allows us to function intelligently. Over time, considerable knowledge is also transformed to other manifestations – such as books, technology, practices, and traditions, - within organizations of all kinds and in society in general. These transformations result in cumulated expertise and, when used appropriately, increased effectiveness” as per Wiig (1993). This definition goes beyond that of Groff and Jones (2003) in that it depicts that knowledge that is anything that one has. It does not have to be learned in the business. This shows that the knowledge is what a person has explored and learned in various experiences. Another definition of knowledgemanagement is by Corso et al (2004) which state thus, “Knowledge Management is about creating an environment that encourages people to learn and share knowledge by aligning goals, integrating bits and pieces of information within and across organizational boundaries, and producing new knowledge that is usable and useful to the organization”. This definition shows that knowledge management is a process which should be nurtured and developed. It shows that people should learn and share knowledge. There is also an interesting aspect from this definition knowledge should be connected to have a meaningful meaning. The various bits of information should be joined together to get the required meaning that will then be used to get the valuable information. From the definitions, one thing is clear, that knowledge should be explored and retained. The knowledge should then be shared so that it remains meaningful. The definition that I find intensive is that of Corso et al (2004) where the authors stress that there should be an environment that encourages knowledge creation and learning. I also find this definition important because of the fact that knowledge that has been created should be in accordance to the business goals and mission. The knowledge should be aligned to the business objectives. Question 2 Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques 2(a) The structure of the club includes a club room, a library and a group of curiosities. The club has the director who is concerned with major operations of the club. There are clerks who are concerned with the daily operations of the club. There are also are linked to external stakeholders like government departments and environment lobbyists. These external stakeholders affect the operations of the club because they get information from the club. They are concerned with topics that touch the community. They, however, do not get engaged in environmental issues. They just would like to know the current issues that affect the communities. They have legal concerns and implications so that they are concerned with the material that they publish. With this material, they want to know the person who is legally bound to claim the material that they have. The technological infrastructure that they are concerned with is that of web infrastructure and having web-based systems. They would like to have a system that will help them to manage. The membership of the club includes external stakeholders, internal stakeholders who are mostly employees. From the description, the membership is going down. Most of the members are now the employees of the club. It has a research-based business model. Most of the funding is from research that they undertake. Most government departments are interested with the data and will pay for the research data that has been obtained from the club. They also get funding from environmental lobbyists who are also interested with the information that they receive. The business model is that it uses its massive funds for environmental research so that the community feels served; they intend to automate their operation by applying an advanced technology so that they improve their services. In addition, the mode of collecting data from the respondent is secured. The knowledge management objective of the organization is to make sure that for each and every checkpoint that can be used to attain maximum identification of knowledge, there is adequate information (April, & Ahmadi,2006). First, the stumbling block as far as achievement of the goal is concern is how to get a well-established information concerning documentation while for the company; the big issue is on the organizational management information. 2(b) Knowledge management tools i. Blogging as a knowledge management tool There are various knowledge management tools that are employed in the club. One of them is that of blogging. Blogging is a very good tool that provides two-way Web-based communication capability. This is achieved when a blogger, or writer, posts an item on the Web and readers or users will post their comments on the same. Users will post comments thus providing a way of getting views from different people over a matter. With the new system that has been suggested in the club, use of blogs as a management toll will help to get comments and reviews from interest groups. These blogs have a format similar to that of a journal and they are posted in a reverse order based on the date they were posted. These posts can contain text files, video, images and even links to other sites. With this feature, it will be possible to get a rich information repository. Most of the blogs on the Internet today are of textual nature while the rest are video to cater for photographs posted using today’ sophisticated mobile phones. With the club having its own blog, referred to as private blogs, will be able to provide employees with a very efficient way of real-time communication. This capability is provided through live blogging. This will bring more usability within the club. This channel of communication, blogging, has other features which are desirable to any company seeking to improve their communication. The characteristics that are offered by these bring a clear distinction from other modes. If these tools were to be implemented outside the Web 2.0 framework, it would be very expensive to the company. With blogging, the costs of implementing these interactive communication tools have been reduced (Young, 1999). What the club needs to do is to pay for enough bandwidth for their Internet connection. This is much less when compared to installing complicated systems. Blogging is much receptive to the users because they provide an open way of communication unlike the traditional telephone system where someone has to follow some protocol when addressing some callers. Blogs outdo emails because comments are written in a free style giving users the freedom of sharing their views without fear of intimidation. Another advantage of blogging is that blogging have interconnectivity features with other blogs. The club members will always be looking for the latest posts to comment and they can have other links directed to other blogs they are interested in from other sites. With these links, people with the same interest will be brought together and will help to form an informative online community. Blogging will provide the ease of searching of articles in our club. This is because it has features where it will enable our club members to search for older posts using either subject or author. This will improve relationships in the company because blogs written by managing directors or those with higher ranks in the club will be given good addressing and seriousness they deserve. It will be easy to achieve this because what the user needs to do is to search for blog posts according to the author criteria and it will be displayed with minimal time. Another characteristic of blogging as a knowledge management tool is that of syndication. If a user subscribes to blogs, they will easily get the details such as subscription time that could otherwise be used to search for them. Users can subscribe to several blogs and their updates will be posted on their personal home pages or email inbox. It is clear from this that blogging will be a good investment to the club because communication will be improved. A community of users will be developed which will be easy to liaise with blogging. ii. Expert system as a knowledge management tool The design of expert system will follow the latest designs of web-based expert systems. This particular design will follow knowledge engineering approach. The knowledge engineering is mainly used in expert system, decision support system and the geographical information system (Gill 1995). Knowledge engineering mainly starts with assessing the problem presented to be solved. After this, it is followed by the development of a knowledge-based system shell/structure and then the acquisition and structuring of the related information, knowledge and specific preferences,implementation of the structured knowledge into knowledge bases, Testing and validation of the inserted knowledge this is done in the essence so as to clarify that the inserted information has been done correctly and the Integration and maintenance of the system is where the system is integrated to its supposed functionalities so as to ensure effective functioning. Revision and evaluation of the system is done to ensure that all the things are intact and are working or functioning as planned (Durkin 1996).The club will therefore have to get the information that is needed to design the expert system. The main reason for the design of the system is to effectively manage the various processes that are undertaken from printing materials, to publishing and making copyrights of the reading materials. There is a need to manage the ownership issues that come with the club. iii. Database management system as a knowledge management tool Another knowledge management tool that will be very helpful in the new web-based knowledge management system for the club is that of database management system. It is important to have a database which will be used to manage the data and the data in the club. With the partners being strict in what they share with the club, it will be important to know the various data that are shared and how the data will be shared. It is also important to have a data management system so that the management of the printing and publishing of the reading materials flows well. Using a database management system is important. It eases the management of information in the club and the partners. With a good database management system, it is easy to retrieve specific data from the database. The cases of traditional way of keeping club records of its members in using spreadsheets have the limitation of use of queries, normalization restrictions. The projects target data and information may be club records, club member registration, billing and scheduling modules, demographics, environmentaltrends, emerging issues in the environment, problems in the communities, global warming, new partners, critical signs, private stats such as age and weight. The importance of multi-million-dollar systems is actually ascertained by the most fundamental feature of the system. In the case of such a data-intensive system, quality data serves as the starting point of the database, the foundation for the accuracy of the data clients hope to get or communicate, and the fountain of reliable facts users need in order to conduct analyses. If users base on output from automatic management information systems, the higher the chances to start with substantial data. To arrive at quality data, the data analysis process should follow a disciplined and well-defined approach a sequential development process that makes sure that there is completeness and validity, structural integrity, and meeting conversion rules. Coded data go a long way in doing more than ever before, thus making it clear that critical environmental crusaders are abreast of many dynamic transitions. The greatest development is the improvement of coding from its traditional task of interpreting narrative clinical text to diagnosis and code procedures. Coding should now conform to new requirements to incorporate healthcare data in a reliable standard form that has international meaning and can be used both at the personal and aggregate levels. With this development come new responsibilities, like entry of club information to a database and the urge to internalize the way in which quality and accuracy of the information are mapped in code sets. Coded data have a great role in making sure that proper reimbursement for healthcare services delivered for institutional or service provider claims. This role goes further to improve as prospective payments have grown to factor in other treatment configuration, like inpatient psychiatric infrastructure. Major organizations like professional organization for SQL server and worldwide SQL server users group will be of great importance in the project. Various standards such as naming guidelines are among the top standards that should be enforced as guidelines for naming database objects.We also have Roles and Responsibilitiesthat is required in proper operation of a DBMS, it is simply a coordinated management of strives of many skilled experts. The other standards are Administration Standards which will basically lay down the domain of the database administrator’s task. The final standard is Application Standards that should act as an adjunct to any application standard built up steps within the organization. iv. Social networking Another knowledge management tool that is equally important and required for the organization is that of social networking. Internet was introduced for public and commercial use in the early 1990,s. Initially, it was developed for military purposes only; therefore the research that spearheaded the same was done secretly by the military (Agarwal, &Mital, 2009). The Internet has boosted the communication that is experienced in the club.Today there are hundreds of social networking platforms that have transformed the way man interacts with fellow man. The increasing number of these networks is driven by the increasing demand and its ability to be used for different purposes in the industry (Albrechtslund, 2008). Their applications have exceeded the expectations with people using them to carry out almost every bit of business in everyday life. Talk of those who want to fundraise, not forgetting advertisers marketing their products; social networks are the best for them all (Albrechtslund, 2008). The ever-changing market demand for business has been kept abreast by the ever changing and flexible nature with which human beings communicate. When instant electronic mail messages took root in 1990’s, it was thought to be the best form of instant communication that there would be (Aleksandra et al., 2008). Lately websites like facebook.com, myspace.com, twitter.com and you tube have become major networking services used by millions of people to connect with others every day. They would benefit a great deal with the use of these knowledge management tools. 2(c) To come up with a strong database model with archival strength established through data warehouse, following products can be used, SAP is business intelligence software that enables complete integration of business activities issues within an organizational setup. SAP products are renowned for working together with customers in an easy and flexible fashion. Customer services have also always been the top most priority of SAP Business solution providers. SAP offers EDW (Enterprise Data Warehousing) that enables the operators to create customized data warehouse and to operate it in convenient and flexible manner. The notable features are, The integration of diverse systems. Support of different topologies. Development of topologies. Easy information access through layered methodology. Physical and virtual data Integration facility with real time access. Support for operational reporting and strategic analyses. Other products may be MySQL Server based Microsoft Analysis Services. Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition. All of these products aid the development of suitable Decision Support System as well. In order to achieve the productivity through social networking, the platforms that support the evolution and maintenance of the social connections are various and limitless. Examples of platforms supporting social web profiles are Facebook and Tagged Question 3 Dublin Core Meta Data of Cornell university website Title =”Cornell university college” creator =”Cornell university college” Description ="Cornell University have four schools including school of Medicine, the Law School, the Steve Johnson Graduate School of business, and the Cornell engineering College in Miami. A total of 123 field of study” Identifier =”www.cornelluniversity.ac.uk” Publisher =”Cornell university college” Rights =”closed private” Subject =”Cornell university college” type =”html/css” coverage =”Students academic and finance information.” Date =”October 2012” Format =”http/www.edu.uk/2002” Language =”English us” Relation =”Faculty of information technology” Source =”IT department of Cornell university” Dublin Core Meta Data of Singapore art museum Title: ="Singapore Art Museum" creator ="Singapore Art Museum informatics department" Description ="The Singapore Art Museum has links with other museums within the region. Its programmed partners are Shanghai Art Museum, Seoul National University Museum of Art, Bonn Art Museum, Centre of International Modern Art, Hong Kong Museum of Art, , and Fukuoka Art Museum. They also associate with art institutions in Asia and Japan. Basing on the art growth in the city Singapore becoming a leading museum that present art, SAM's international networks bring about a confluence of ideas, and create a dynamic arts scene invigorated by international flows of ideas, talents, knowledge and resources." Identifier =“www.singaporeartmuseum.com” Publisher =”Singapore art press” Rights =”Open public” Subject = “art in the museum” type =”JavaScript/html” coverage =”Art wild nature” Date ="Mon, 04 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0400" Format ="http://www.singaporeaermuseum.com/2006/php" Language =”en UK” Relation =”Department of heritage” Source =”The organization of youth empowerment” References  Albrechtslund, A 2008, “Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance”, First Monday, Vol. 13, Issue 3. (Journal article) Aleksandra Korolova, Rajeev Motwani, Shubha, U, Nabar, & Ying, X 2008, “Link privacy in social networks”, Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM\'08). (pp. 289-298). ACM. 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