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ABSTRACT Most organisations realise that “knowledge” is a strategic resource that gives them sustainable competitive advantage and helps them achieve long-term organisational goals. With the realization that knowledge is a core resource, organisations are now attempting to manage knowledge in a more systematic and more effective way. However, managing knowledge is not always an easy task. In particular contexts, such as online distance education, knowledge is distributed across both time and space and may be constrained by social, cultural and language differences. In such cases, the support of best practices in Knowledge Management (KM) could be problematic. This paper studies online distance education provision to identify the major problems that hinder KM practices. Focussing on online learning communities in which knowledge creation and knowledge sharing are essential
elements, it tries to develop a set of guidelines to help overcome problems using tools and techniques from KM.


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DeanSt 		Latest page update: made by DeanSt , May 14 2007, 5:33 AM EDT (about this update About This Update DeanSt Ref: Ubon and Kemble,Knowledge management inoonline distance education, networked learning 2002 - DeanSt

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DeanSt 3 elements of a community of practise 1 May 24 2007, 3:52 AM EDT by DeanSt
Thread started: May 24 2007, 3:50 AM EDT  Watch
Knowledge management as a doughnut:
Shaping your knowledge strategy through
communities of practice
By Etienne Wenger
Reprint # 9B04TA03
IVEY MANAGEMENT SERVICES • January/February 2004
COPYRIGHT © 2004
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DeanSt Dissemination of Knowledge 2 May 18 2007, 5:52 AM EDT by DeanSt
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Finerty (1997) points out that technology has a role to play, but that the emphasis needs to move from trying to package knowledge as an object to using technology as a way of sharing experience. This view is supported by Davenport and Prusak who emphasise the potential of technology as a means to create links between people:
...the more rich and tacit knowledge is, the more technology should be used to enable people to share that knowledge directly. It's not a good idea to try and contain or represent the knowledge itself using technology. (Davenport & Prusak, 1998: 96)
Similarly, Junnarkar and Brown (1997) point to the potential of technologies such as tele and video-conferencing, while others (Scheepers & Damsgaard, 1997; Roushan & Bobeva, 1999) point to the knowledge sharing potential of intranets. However, most technologies currently remain focussed on the sharing of abstracted, harder aspects of knowledge in the form of reports and documents (Ruggles, 1998; Sumner, et al., 1998).
IT alone is not a satisfactory solution (Seely Brown & Duguid, 1998) and many authors (e.g. Leonard & Sensiper, 1998; Kimble, et al., 2000) emphasise the continuing need for physical contact. However, even with physical contact, there remain difficulties in the management of softer knowledge, for example, the importance of language - not just national language but also professional or technical language. Drucker (1992) provides the example of an American civil servant who would be at home discussing bureaucratic issues with a Chinese counterpart, but who would be lost if he had to sit in a marketing meeting of a major retail organisation.
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DeanSt Communities of Practise 0 May 18 2007, 5:26 AM EDT by DeanSt
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The term "knowledge management" has had its
detractors. Some people have even claimed that it is an
oxymoron: when it comes to knowledge, they say, the
term management does not even apply. Others have
criticized the IT focus that the term suggests. Yet the
term also makes sense. If knowledge is a strategic asset,
then it has to be managed like any critical organizational
asset. It is too important to be left to chance.
In order to define itself, the field has spent a lot of
time trying to define knowledge. It has been important
to insist that knowledge is different from more
traditional organizational assets-and in particular,
different from mere information-which organizations
have learned to manage. This may have been a useful
exercise, but intuitively, everybody knows what
knowledge is. When you have it, you are likely to
understand situations and do the right thing; when you
don't, you are in trouble. More recently, the field has
come to realize the importance of "communities of
practice" as the social fabric of knowledge. Scientific
knowledge, for instance, is really the property of
communities, which decide what counts as relevant facts
and acceptable explanations of these facts. Knowing is
not merely an individual experience, but one of
exchanging and contributing to the knowledge of a
community. Knowledge from this perspective is what
our human communities have accumulated over time
to understand the world and act effectively in it.
The management side of the term "knowledge
management" has been less of a topic of discussion.
Yet I believe that it is as productive a term to investigate.
If by "manage" we mean to care for, grow, steward,
make more useful, then the term knowledge
management is rather apt.
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