Corporate Knowledge Initiatives

In view of the fast changing outlook of technology innovation, employees' knowledge

is an intangible asset of corporations often referred as part of Intellectual
Property (IP), and increasingly referred as "Intellectual Capital" (IC)
!ullivan, "###$%
&he ''ournal of Intellectual Capital' ('IC, "#(()defines it as) "IC is the
knowledge, applied e*perience, enterprise processes and technology customer
relationships and professional skills which are valuable assets to an
organi+ation%"
In particular, Corporations produce a great deal of internal knowledge that
should be efficiently transmited to key employees in order to use that knowledge
as a lever to win bids, to deploy successful pro,ects on time and budget, and to
achieve a prominent position between the I& leading companies%
-hen Corporations grow and spread worldwide the need for an unified, corporate.wide,
worldwide training initiative is more than apparent but crucial%
&his paper basically proposes the establishment of a network of processes that
may lead us as a company to fulfill the goal of corporate training% &his goal
may be achieved through a Corporate /niversity%
0 Corporate /niversity is actually an old concept that had received a new drive
because of Internet enabled technologies% &he 1eneral 2lectric's Corporate
/niversity dates back to (344 and the 5ac 6onald's 7amburger /niversity opened
in (38(% !ometimes these initiatives are embodied in brick.and.mortar facilities
much like the traditional academic institutions most people refer as a
"university" but increasingly they are being deployed as e.9earning 5anagement
!ystems (e.95!)%
0 e.95! is usually a web.enabled application or stack of applications that deals
with course authoring and deployment, trainees enrollment, grading, etc%
&he premier :pen !ource e.95!, in terms of deployed sites is 5oodle% 5oodle has
a plethora of documentation and is under active development with a budding
community% It also has commercial support initiatives, and even a certification
path%
!ome other e.95! may be simpler to install, or have simpler ways to develop
courses but few has the capability to scale up when the corporate training
program lift up%
Relevance of the SKI to the Corporation
In order to keep the pace companies must implement strategies to)
(.% !treamline the hiring process% &o ;uickly choose the better prospects and
categori+e their aptitudes%
".% &rain the new hirings
<.% Implement certification schemes to the company's products and propietary
knowledge%
&here are many solutions that may help corporations to deal with the above
situations but 5oodle may be used to support all these processes% 0s well,
5oodle through its modular construction and availablity of source code (written
in popular language P7P), allows customi+ations in forms of plugins or
coordinated interaction with e*ternal application%
:ne such case is =ig=lue=utton, which is an open source web conferencing system
and deliver an integrated solution using >oIP, chat, whiteboarding sharing and
interactive remote learning if re;uired% :r 5ahara, which is an open source
e.portfolio solution%
/sing 5oodle, Corporations may lever its knowledge and enhance the distribution of
intellectual capital to key employees% -hat we need to accomplish these goals?
@irst, as all corporate services should be, the pro,ect re;uire an active
sponsorship from the top level management (&95))% It must be incorporated into
the corporate strategy to e*cellence and resources must be clearly allocated to
it% :nce deployed, &95 must advertise it and champion its use% &he C2:'s blog
must herald it, and the 7A must use it for the hiring and promote it on the Bear
Aeview ob,ectives% Pro,ect managers must mandate its use in internal trainings%
!econd, a full blown pro,ect of implementation must be deployed with progressive
but realistic milestones% :nce implemented it should be managed as any other
corporate service% =eing a strategic service, part.time administration by work
laden employees will simple not function% 0t all%
&hird, train the content developers in 5oodle ways and ends% /se 5oodle to train
them when posible%

9astly courses must be thoroughly tested% &here is needed a process not only to
develop courses, but to test them and follow its use%
:nce implemented, general availability must be assured% :n Corporations the sun
never set down and so is the need of hiring and training%
Course development
&he most difficult part on course development is the design step% @re;uently
people approach to course design with an imperfect idea about what they want to
teach%
&he first thing a course developer must do is write down a clear statement of
course ob,ectives and the prere;uisites to take the course% &his must put in
clear what the people must know CbeforeC they can take the course and also what
they will learn from it%
In second place, the developer must split the course in short, clear topics%
-hen posible they must fit a single screen% 7ere is also convenient to write
down ;uick assesments to each of these topics that may control the progress%
&hird, a flowchart or mind map that show the relations between the topics as
well as the points where global assesments should be taken%
:nce done all of the above, sit down to mount the course and the final
assesments on 5oodle% /se the Preview mode and test the flow% =efore publish to
the end public enroll a tester (not youD) that could test it and find any
posible rough ends% Polish your course and enroll your target cohort%
:nce the first cohort is ready use the 5oodle tools to receive feedback and
improve the course%
Acknowledgements:
&hanks to Aicardo 7ernande+ (ricardo%hernande+Esmartmatic%com) to drive my
attention to =ig=lue=utton and to share with me his own e*perience on 5oodle%
References:
(.% !eufert, !abine ("##()% "2.9earning =usiness 5odels, @ramework and =est
Practice 2*amples", /niversity of !t% 1allen, !wit+erland%
".% !ullivan, Patrick ("###) ">alue.driven Intellectual CapitalF 7ow to convert
Intangible Corporate 0ssets into 5arket >alue%" -iley, 7oboken, G', /%!%0%
<.% Gewsweek 5aga+ine ("#(#) "Aise of the Corporate College", !eptember "#, "#(#
issue, Gew Bork, Gew Bork, /%!%0%
H.% 'ournal of Intellectual Capital ("#((),
http)IIwww%emeraldinsight%comIproductsI,ournalsI,ournals%htm?idJ,ic
4.% Cole, 'ason et al% ("##K) "/sing 5oodle", :'Aeilly, /%!%0%
8.% Cole, 'ason et al% ("#(() "5oodle "%# for =usiness% =eginner's 1uide", Packt
Publishing, /%L%
Websites:
5oodle, http)IImoodle%orgI
=ig=lue=utton, http)IIbigbluebutton%orgI
5ahara, http)IImahara%org