Knowledge Based Management for Higher Education

1. KnowledgeBasedManagement for Higher Education Robert D. Stueart

2. No activity in the world is attracting as much attention as that of knowledge management

3. Confusion over meaning of Knowledge Management • Some view it as a pretentious label forInformation Management • Some use the term to signal more complex work involved inorganizing access to networked information resources • Cynics simply dismiss it as the latestmanagement fad

4. All healthy organizations generate and use knowledge As they interact with environment, they absorb information, turn it into knowledge and take action based on its combination with their own: • Experiences • Values • Internal rules

5. Knowledge Management, then, is the process of transforming INFORMATION and INTELLECTUAL ASSETS into enduring VALUE

6. This requires a blend of: • PEOPLE • PROCESSES (Strategy) • TECHNOLOGY

7. PEOPLE –not technology –manage knowledge Organizations can promote those policies and practices that build teamwork to help people share and manage knowledge – but people ultimately “manage” knowledge

8. Quote from Andrew Carnegie, a well known American Educator "the only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people. The productivityof that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it."

9. Knowledge Management involves connecting •people with people • people with information

10. THETRANSFORMATION OF:•DATA•INFORMATION•RECORDED KNOWLEDGE INTODIGITAL FORMHAS PRECIPITATED ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

11. Technology Enhances the ability to rapidly disseminate information and develop knowledge bases thereby presenting opportunities to: • change traditional organizational structures • inspire an informal style • promote social networks Knowledge-sharing underpinnings

12. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Should not be co-opted by technology which, though important, is not the focus of knowledge management; technology can capture information but not create knowledge

13. Remember: technology is a tool “when the only tool available is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”(quote from Mark Twain

14. HOLISTIC VIEW OF KNOWLEDGE • Present in ideas,judgment,talents,root causes,relationships, perspectives and concepts • Stored in the individual’s brain or encoded in organizational processes, documents, products, services, facilities and systems

15. Knowledge management practices Draw out the tacitknowledge people have, what they carry around with them, what they observe and learn from experience, in addition to what is usually explicitly stated.

16. ‘Explicit' and ‘Tacit' Knowledge Explicit knowledge is formal and systematic and can be easily communicated and shared, i.e., in a book or a database in the library, a product specifications, or a scientific formula or a computer program. Tacit knowledge is highly personal, is unrecordedand unarticulatedand is hard to formalize and therefore difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to communicate.

17. ELEMENTS of Explicity: • ACCESSING • EVALUATING • MANAGING • ORGANIZING • FILTERING • DISTRIBUTING

18. in web-based links to other sites, databases, publications, and in the knowledge of experts employed in institutions (the value-added dimension) in the past, communication of this information has always been informal, word-of-mouth, and not the province of any organizational unit Tacit “information” is more difficult to obtain because it is buried :

19. "If Mr. Smith gets run over by a bus tomorrow, we're in trouble because only he knows how the scheduling [or accounting or other reporting] system actually works" How then, do we take advantage of the wealth of knowledge held only in our minds and those of our colleagues? Example: How many times is something like this observed :

20. Unlike Information, Knowledgeis not just a:“thing” to be“ managed” It is a Capacity - of people and communities - to continuously generate and renew themselves to meet new challenges and opportunities; it is the collective knowledge of the organization

21. KNOWLEDGE TRANSFORMATION: • HUMANS: transform information into a format that causes it to be easily converted into knowledge by another human being • KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS: statistical analysis software; data mining tools, decision support systems, AI, data visualization tools, expert systems, decision support systems, etc. are aids

22. THE TRANSFORMATION IDEA ENCOMPASSES TWO CONCEPTS • Utilizing and exploiting the organization’s information • Application of people’s competencies, skills, talents, thoughts, ideas, intuitions, commitments, motivations, and imaginations in that process

23. Knowledge should be differentiated from other levels in a heirarchy of assimilation

24. HIERARCHY OF ASSIMILATION ENLIGHTMENT WISDOM UNDERSTANDING KNOWLEDGE INFORMATION DATA

25. In order to Understand one part of that hierarchy one should Understand all of them

26. Data: Data is Symbols: And has no significance beyond its existence; No meaning in and of itself

27. ORGANIZATIONS HAVE ALL SORTS OF DATA: TANGIBLE DOCUMENTS: REPORTS, PRESENTATIONS, FINANCIAL FACTS AND FIGURES, ETC. So to bring order out of chaos organizations provide mechanisms to organize data into information. Information systems, like library databases, provide consistent and logical treatment of data so people can find things.

28. Information: Data that are processed to be useful:"who", "what", "where", "when,”data that has been given meaning

29. Knowledge: Answers“How”, “Why”;involves appropriate collection and distillation of information Knowledge Management is concerned with developing organizations in such a manner as to derive knowledge from information.

30. KNOWLEDGE • enhances the learning process • stimulates innovation in education • raise levels of productivity • speeds development • improves lives

31. One major difference between Information & Knowledge

32. Information is: • Visible • Independent from action and decision • Format changes after processing • Physical product • Independent from existing environment • Easily transferable • Can be duplicated

33. While Knowledge • Can’t be duplicated • Closely related to action and decision • Thought changes after processing • Invisible • Spiritual product • Identified with existing environment • Transfer through learning

34. Understanding:appreciation of"why" difference between knowledge and understandingis the difference between "memorizing”and "learning"

35. Wisdom:Evaluated Understanding calls upon all the previous levels of consciousness; human programming (moral, ethical codes, etc.)

36. Enlightenment For my Buddhist Friends this is the ultimate level - “be all you can be”

37. Categories • First two of those elements (data and information) involve the past (what has been or what is known) • Last four (knowledge, understanding, wisdom, enlightenment) address the future- (people can create the future rather than just grasp the present and past).

38. EXAMPLES (1) • Data represents a fact or statement of event without relation to other things. • Example: It is raining.

39. EXAMPLE (2) • Informationembodies the understanding of a relationship of some sort, possibly cause and effect. • Example: The temperature dropped 15 degrees and then it started raining.

40. EXAMPLE (3) • Knowledge represents a pattern that connects and generally providing a high level of predictability as what is described or what will happen next. • Example: If the humidity is very high and the temperature drops substantially the atmosphere is often unlikely to be able to hold the moisture so it rains.

41. EXAMPLE (4) • Understanding; embodies more of an Understanding of fundamental principles embodied within the knowledge • Example: It rains because it rains. And this encompasses an understanding of all the interactions that happen between raining, evaporation, air currents, temperature gradients, changes, raining.

42. Knowledge Management. "...a discipline that promotes an integrated approach to identifying, managing and sharing all of an enterprise's information assets. These information assets may include databases, documents, policies and procedures, as well as previously unarticulated expertise and experience resident in individual workers."(Gartner Group Inc, October 1996)

43. Applications in libraries and other information centers might typically fall into broad categories:

44. 1)Knowledge databases and repositories (explicit knowledge) storing information and documents that can be shared and re-used, for example: in personnel data; meeting minutes; research reports; training packets, etc.

45. 2) Knowledge route-maps and directories (tacit and explicit knowledge) Pointing to: people, document collections and datasets that can be consulted: for example, 'yellow pages'/'expert locators' containing CVs, competency profiles, research interests

46. 3) Knowledge networks and discussions (tacit knowledge) Providing opportunities for face to-face contacts and electronic interaction, for example, establishing chat facilities/'talk rooms', and fostering learning groups

47. Once we admit to ourselves how loosely we may be attending to the critical knowledge assets of our institutions, the sooner we will be ready to embrace KM as a valuable tool in both using and protecting that asset.

48. A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM WOULD DECIDE: • WHAT to share • WITH WHOM to share • HOW to share, and in fact • DECIDING to share

49. But: “Before an organization can adopt a knowledge management strategy, it must develop a knowledge management culture”Sivan (1999

50. Core Idea of Knowledge Management Establish an environment where information is shared and openly accepted Requires change in organizational culture because people are not accustomed to “sharing”