By,
Dr. Praveenkumar. Kumbargoudar
Assistant Librarian (Sr)
Karnataka.
Abstract:
The twenty first century is
conceived as knowledge era. Hence the
importance on knowledge related activities were increased. Knowledge Management playing an important
role in generating, developing, storing and making ready to use of
knowledge. With the increase in
applications of Information and Communication Technology, several tools and
techniques were developed to manage the knowledge effectively. The present paper explained different tools
and techniques of the Knowledge Management in the digital era.
Key words
Knowledge Management, KM Tools & Techniques, Digital
era.
Introduction:
Information and knowledge played an important
role in every aspect of human life in the modern world. Nothing moves without knowledge and it is
believed that knowledge and information is the power and it is an important
resource needed to develop other resources.
For instance, in agriculture, knowledge about soils, crops, seasons,
fertilizers etc is essential to get the crops, for every corporate and
industrial organization the knowledge is needed as a basic resource like
materials, machinery, money and men (4M’s), therefore the knowledge has become
critical resource, just like energy, both of which are vital to the well being
of individuals, professions, occupations and corporate organizations. Like other resources in an organization, the
knowledge is also a resource and should be managed to ensure its cost-effective
use.
According to Argyris,
‘Knowledge is the capacity for effective action;’ Ranganathan defined knowledge
as “the totality of the idea conserved by the humans, in the sense knowledge is
equal to the universe of ideas”1. Knowledge may be defined as the fact or
condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or
association.
There are so many
statements rather call these characteristics about knowledge prevailed in
library and information centers. Some
important statements are enumerated below2:
v
Knowledge is an intellectual capital of a
library and information centers.
v
Library staffs create knowledge.
v
Human needs and motivation lead us naturally to
create knowledge.
v
Every library staff is a knowledge worker.
v
Knowledge is an intangible resource.
v
Library personnel always try to share their
knowledge.
v
Knowledge is born in chaotic process that takes
time.
v
Knowledge has a tendency to be privatized.
v
Knowledge has a tendency to be leaked out.
v
Library staff have tendency to over simplify the
knowledge.
v
Knowledge is volatile in nature, so need to be
documented.
Knowledge Management (KM):
Knowledge Management
is “the art of creating values for an organization’s intangible assets. Knowledge Management provides access to
various aspects like experience; knowledge and expertise that create new
capabilities that enables superior performance, encourages innovation and
enhances customer value. Thus it serves
as an organizational infrastructure that captures and makes profit with existing
information and knowledge assets of the organization, facilitates information
and knowledge dissemination across the boundaries and integrates the
information and knowledge into day-to-day work.3
Knowledge Management
is the process through which learned institutes generate value from their
intellectual and knowledge based resources.
Knowledge Management is the practice of harnessing and exploiting
intellectual capabilities to gain the competitive advantage and draw
researchers’ commitment. It leads to
efficiency, innovation and faster and more cost effective decision making in
research endeavors of the organization.
Much of the value
added research is generated from such resources. It involves shared information among the
scientists and the organizations through the best practice of sharing
information resources. No doubt,
technology often facilitates knowledge management with utmost efficacy and
efficient handling of information and thus helps to reach new heights. Knowledge Management technologies capture,
store, catalogue, protect, retrieve and disseminate information4.
Need for knowledge management:
The whole world is
becoming a knowledge society. So it is a
need of the hour for each one of us to think in terms of investing on knowledge
management and harvesting the benefits5:
(i)
To explore the knowledge available within.
(ii)
To harvest the knowledge of individuals who may be
leaving the parent organization at any point of time. This helps the organization to avoid the loss
of knowledge.
(iii)
To bring the culture of knowledge sharing.
(iv)
Better utilization of knowledge.
(v)
Re-use of the existing knowledge.
Objectives of Knowledge Management:
Following are the main
objectives of Knowledge Management6:
- To create knowledge repositories, which store both knowledge and information, often in documentary form. A common feature is “Added value” through categorization and pruning.
- To improve knowledge access, or to provide access to knowledge or to facilitate its transfer among individuals; here the emphasis on connectivity, access and transfer and technologies such as video conferencing systems, document scanning using of OCR Technology and sharing tools and telecommunications networks are central to this objective.
- To enhance the knowledge environment to that the environment is conducive to more effective knowledge creation, transfer and use. This involves tacking organizational norms and values as they relate to knowledge.
- To manage knowledge as an asset, and to recognize the value of knowledge to an organization. Assets, such as technologies that one sold under license or have potential value, customer databases and detailed parts catalogues are typical of companies’ intangible assets to which a value can be assigned.
Knowledge Management: Tools and Techniques
To manage the
knowledge, certain tools, techniques and methodologies are necessary. After the development of Information and
Communication technologies and the web based application, the knowledge
management becomes easy. The tools,
techniques and methods of knowledge management are explained as under.
- Traditional
Tools:
The
traditional tools of knowledge management include knowledge generation,
classification, refinement, transmission and communication. Many of the tools such as classification
schemes, cataloging codes, indexing techniques used for knowledge
management. The traditional tools are
manual and are library oriented processes.
- Computer
based Tools:
With the invention of computer systems, knowledge management becomes
easier. Computers made the information and knowledge
processing, preparing output in datasheets, storage of the knowledge and
communication convenient and also saved the time.
- Knowledge
Systems and Networks :
The invention of knowledge
systems and networks played an important role in combining the different
individuals and organizations together ‘Knowledge networking is difficult to
define or describe …. Knowledge Networking is a rich and dynamic phenomenon in
which knowledge is shared, developed and evolved. It is more than access to information,
because it also delves into the unknown.
It is more than using the rules and inferences of expert systems, because
it is about knowledge that is evolving.
Although it verges on simplification, it is the computer argumentation
(typically through Groupware) of person-to-person communications resulting in
the development of new knowledge.
Knowledge Networks emphasize sharing of information to generate ideas,
develop new products and promote innovation.
Heavy dependency on computerized networks in looked upon as an essential
component of Knowledge Networks7.
4. Flow Charts and Work Flow Management Tools:
Workflow management tools have
grown from the traditional flow chart tools.
They are the process management tools for knowledge intensive
organizations. Workflow tools allow for
the specification of the movement of documents in information processes. As
these tools have evolved, they have begun to have capabilities for representing
both the knowledge of the workflow process and the knowledge that is processed
using the workflow process. However,
there is clearly much more work to be done in this area.
One of the key challenges of ERP
packages is to able to integrate the many different types of knowledge that
they represent and present it to many different types of users in meaningful
way.
- Web based
Tools:
The
web based knowledge management tools include web portal, search engines and
navigation tools. Web portals explain
the activities of an organization.. The
library/information centre portal plays an important role in managing and
organizing the information and knowledge in the library. The search engines are popularly known as
knowledge navigators. There are many thousands of search engines that are
available in web. Most significant
search engines include AltaVista, Google, Yahoo, Excite, MSN and so on. Users of the search engines are provided with
support as they navigate themselves through a knowledge domain in order to
locate the knowledge that they are seeking.
As these navigation aids become more sophisticated they are having to
take account of the user’s initial knowledge of the domain and in some cases,
providing instruction as the search proceeds such that the user provides answers
that guide subsequent navigation8.
- Software
Tools:
Many of the web based
and web enabled software are available for knowledge management. These tools provide for setting up bulletin
boards and others provide for real-time video conferencing, white boards and
chat rooms.
- Visualizing
Tools:
The
increasing power of computers and the development of high resolution monitors
provided access to a variety of very powerful visualization tools for knowledge
management. These tools help to
represent the knowledge in systematic way.
If web enabled, these tools proved to be the powerful tools for
knowledge management.
- Virtual
Reality:
Virtual Reality is an
oxymoron, where Virtual means as existing or resulting in essence or effect
though not in actual fact, form or name and Reality means the quality or state
actual or true…The term Virtual Reality refers to an environment or object
simulated by computer hardware and software in such a way that the viewer
experience the environment or object as though it were real9.
Virtual reality technology
provides an active laboratory for investigating, representing and refining
knowledge. These technologies are also
effective tools for sharing communication of knowledge.
Conclusion:
Knowledge management
is very important to any organization, as it define the value or worth of an
organization in four dimensions, such as mission, competition, performance and
change. Knowledge management is a process
through which the intellectual capital of a library is effectively
managed. To manage the knowledge
effectively the knowledge management tools play an important role. With the development of Information and
Communication Technology applications, many of tools stated above are
developed.
References:
1. Ranganathan, SR : Prolegomena to library
classification. Bangalore :
SRELS, 1990, P.81.
2. Jana, Sibshankar and Sengupta, Susmita: Knowledge Management in perspective of
Library and Information
Center Institute
of Management , Nirma University
3. Yadav,SL
and others: Knowledge Management: A new trend for New Era. ILA
Bulletin. Vol.39
No.4
4. Venkataramana,V and Others: Knowledge
Management Technologies to disseminate Information Wealth. ILA Seminar Papers, 47th All India Library Conference, Warangal , 20-23, Dec 2001 P. 98-104.
5. Sakthi Regha, V: Knowledge Management Initiatives
in Libraries and Information Centres: A practical approach. Proceedings of the National Conference of
SALIS 2006. Coimbatore :
SALIS & KDU, 8-10 June 2006. P. 416-419.
6. Shashikant Jena and Ranjita Dash N :
Application of IT in knowledge Management: An overall view proceedings of the
National Conference SALIS. Coimbatore : SALIS 8-10
June 2006 P 439 – 442.
7. Vyasamoorthy, P : Knowledge Networks and
Knowledge Networking. Papers of the
National Convention on Library and Information Networking (naclin 2001), P.115-122.
8. Wensley, AKP and Sullivan, AVO: Tools for
Knowledge Management. Knowledge
Horizons. Edited by Charles Despres and
Daniele Chauvel. Boston : Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001. P. 113-130.
9. Sangam, SL and Kulkani, SR: Concept of
Virtual Library. ILA Seminar Papers 47th
All India
Library Conference. Warrangal, 20-23
December 2001. P. 681-695.
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